Don't feed the animals...

Well, if you take a look at my side-nav/side-bar/side-menu, you'll see that I've officially cancelled the $5 NL TigerGaming Challenge. I have a few good reasons for this:

1. TigerGaming does not support PokerTracker and I'd like to track my NL play.


2. I've had a bad string of luck, only made worse by the barrage of bold all-in bets by the fish.


3. I get rakeback at Eurobet.


4. Eurobet offers $10 NL tables with blinds at 5c/10c.

In case you haven't figured it out, I've basically transferred the $100 NL challenge over to Eurobet. Since I had about $47 more to win at Tiger before completing the challenge, I've simply started a $50 NL Eurobet Challenge. I'm hoping that the rakeback, PokerTracker and the larger starting stack size will make the Eurobet game more +EV for me. We'll see...

Other than that, I'd like to say that I had an exciting night at the tables - but I can't.

I played $5 NL at Tiger for almost two hours and ended up down about $4. Here's the typical play that cost me $$: I raise PF with a good starting hand, I get three cold calls and then the last guy pushes all in for his $2 or $3. I fold. I like AJs but not enough to call an all-in. Am I playing too tight? I just don't have that "gamble" in me right now.

This happened about 5 or 6 times - then I picked up KK! Sweet! I raise to 5xBB pre-flop and get 2 callers (where's the f*cking all-in this time pricks?!). Flop comes J J 9, both opponents check to me. The pot is big and both opponents are short-stacked so I bet the pot. Only one guy calls with his last 40 cents and shows J9o for the flopped full house. Oh well, at least I only lost 90 cents on that hand.

I also picked up AA and raised it to 4xBB pre-flop and got one caller who pushed all in for 45 cents! I called the extra 5 cents and he showed K9o. I won the hand...but 45 cents did not make up for the $$ lost earlier.

Still, I was only down half a buy-in and I don't think I played horribly. There is, however, one thing that concerns me about my NL play (ring and SNG). It has to do with playing in pots where someone's raised before me (or comes over the top at me).

Lately, I've been folding almost everytime someone raises before I come in to the pot. If I'm in middle position and someone raises to 3xBB from early position, I'm folding anything less than AA-TT and AK. I think I'm playing too tight.

I think the main reason for this is because I have run into situations where I've been dominated quite a bit lately. I may be tilting slightly and I'm too afraid to take a chance.

I'll need to develop a starting hands requirement much like the one I use in the fixed limit games. I trust my post-flop game against the NL ring game opposition at these levels - I'm just too afraid to put it to the test. I guess time will tell and we'll see how my game develops while clearing the Eurobet challenge. I think PokerTracker will help me identify places where I'm losing money.

One last thing, played a $5 SNG at Eurobet last night as well. Ended up in 5th place after only playing 5 of the hands dealt to me. I won all the hands that I played but the last. I was short-stacked and pushed with A2 and got called by AT (another dominated hand - I hate Ax). I really got hurt by the fact that the short-stacks kept doubling up. They'd push, some donkey would call with nothing and double them up. Then the donkey would push, someone else would call them with nothing, and so on.

While these bastards kept moving their chips around, I kept getting more and more short-stacked. It didn't help that 23o seemed to be my predetermined hand of choice for the evening.

Still, I've got 23 more SNGs to play in my 100 SNG Challenge and I'll put my faith in the "long run" to pull me through and get me the win. I'm currently sitting at an ITM of about 40% but an ROI of just over 1%.

Hi, my name's Klopzi and I'm an SNG donkey! I like to sit at tables and fold to the slightest resistance from my opponents. I only play AA and KK but I'll gladly push all-in with a 75 s00ted when I'm short-stacked and on the bubble. I respect no one and fear everyone. My mantra is "Fold,fold,fold", which I repeat to myself as I try to squeak into the money instead of actually playing. I need help...

For the next little while, I'll be playing almost exclusively at Eurobet or Interpoker. If you happen to frequent any of the sites, feel free to look me up and say hello. And for the love of God, please don't sit down at the table with me. I don't think I could stand the competition...

Man, I'm really liking poker again...it's such a nice feeling...

By the way, you may have noticed that I put less affiliate links in this post. I assure you, I'm not going soft and I'm no less greedy: I was just feeling lazy today. I'll hit everyone up for sign-ups tomorrow.

Ok, gotta go. Have a good one...

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I just noticed that I'm about 8 hits away from 1000 hits for this site. Tell your friends and family to visit - I'd like to hit the 1K mark by midnight tonight. I need the validation...

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Hit the 1000 hits...cool. Thanks for stopping by everyone. Guess the next milestone is 10,000 hits. What do you think? Two years? Or three?

Keep reading "Don't feed the animals..."

Stages of a Poker Blogger: Stage 7 Revisited

I am most definitely in Stage 7 at this point. I can tell because all that was old is new again and all that is new is quickly being absorbed and reworked by that part of my brain focusing on poker 24/7.

I was worried that the next stage (which I'll refer to as Stage 8 for now since I have no clue what it will really be) would turn out to be the plateau stage. In fact, I think Stage 7 is itself a form of plateau.

I've started re-reading some of the books I own (I don't feel like pimping anything right now, so no links...). I'm finding more meaning behind the words. I'm seeing the texts in the light of new experience and it is enlightening to say the least.

How we can read the same chapters and pull different meanings after only a short few months is strange. In addition to Miller's SSH and some Sklansky, I've found myself enjoying Matt Maroon's book. His concepts, while more abstract, are more thought provoking and practical (practical abstract concepts?). He presents numerous situations to address the different ways of viewing and tackling situations that arise at the tables.

His concepts also seem to apply greatly to the online poker world. I'm not saying that Matt's book cannot teach you how to play B&M poker - I'm just saying that his focus on using math and betting patterns to determine a course of action seem more important to me than whether or not the guy to my right scratches his nose thusly.

So it seems that Stage 7 is a time for re-learning old tricks, learning new strategies and concepts, and trying to assimilate it all into one big poker package. The rewards of this form of assimilation also represent the dangers of this stage of development. Gathering yourself and defining yourself as a single entity can cause problems if there are pieces missing or, even worse, pieces that are just plain broken.

As a poker player, you cannot help but land upon a plateau during this stage. You're game is in flux. You've lost your poker identity and, as such, can feel a little lost at times. When it all clicks, you feel unstoppable. You're running the tables and people are throwing you their chips.

But as with any new theory, you can't seem to apply your new self to every situation and table out there. Your poker brain will tweak itself at times and do a complete overhaul at other times. This leads to bankroll fluctuations and, if you're not careful, the possibility of ruin. This is, of course, my opinion as a proponent and devout follower of strict bankroll management. I find that the infamous "I blew my bankroll" posts always seem to follow a player trying to come out of Stage 7 too early and tackling harder games without having completed his/her learning and introspection fully.

These peaks and valleys in your game and the mindless flailing at the tables coupled with a burning desire to improve yourself also present themselves on your blog.

You'll find yourself giving advice, retracting that advice, further expanding upon some ideas, and coming up with novel new ideas that just don't work. Your readers are in for a bumpy ride of highs and lows, of "I got it!" moments, of "I thought I had it!" moments, and even the dreaded "I hate this f*cking game!" moment.

However, unlike previous stages littered with bad play, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Not the light, but a pretty good light nonetheless.

You see, by this time, your game has actually improved. Unbeknownst to you at the time, the plateau was tilted slightly upwards. All the while, it seemed as if you were pumping your crazy legs and getting nowhere but even. In fact, you've been reaching upwards and outwards.

This stage is finished when you've successfully taken that next step. It's when your readers notice a change in your writing and in your play.

You seem somehow better than the average player out there. Not great, but pretty good.

You seem somehow better than the average poker blogger out there. Not "I'm bringing my laptop so I can read Klopzi's posts while I'm on vacation" great, but "Let's see what Klopzi's up to now" good.

One last thing about this stage - I have a feeling it's one that lasts a long time. I only say this because as you move up in limits at the table, you need to learn so much to improve. Now, maybe I'm wrong and once it clicks, it clicks. The Law School Dropout moved very quickly from $2/$4 to $50/$100. Many of the bloggers out there seem to do it.

My guess is that you're stuck here until you're well into the middle stakes type games.

As a reader of many blogs, you can definitely sense when a reader has finally moved on. There is no more talk of bad beats, no more hand histories (other than the occasional "I just won my first $XXX sized pot"), and very little advice relating to the playing of the game.

There is more talk of the abstract. There is more talk of theory. There is more talk of "I read this article by Cloutier in CardPlayer where he...".

Good Lord, this post was long! I apologize - I'm in flux and I will be for a while. I just hope you'll put up with my silly theories, good plays, bad plays, and mediocre poker advice.

I guess we'll know when I've left this stage. I have a funny feeling that it'll take me about a year or two. My writing will probably improve at a much faster pace than my poker game, but that's not saying much. I just hope that everyone will put up with me as my blog moves from zen-like discussions to bad beat stories to bathroom humour.

Until I've finally left Stage 7 behind me, I can only say one last thing: don't forget to check out my affiliates.

I blame Stage 7 for my shamelessness...

Keep reading "Stages of a Poker Blogger: Stage 7 Revisited"

If only this title were wittier...

Afternoon ramble time! Will there be any nuggets of wisdom here? As much as there ever is, I guess. So read on if you feel like pissing away a few minutes of your life this afternoon.

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First off, I'm not sure if I gave a shout out to Falstaff over at PokerStage yet. He's been around a bit longer than me and he's got a huge Full Tilt Poker affiliate banner on his blog, which you know is one of my favourite things.

Falstaff actually did a write-up of Klopzi's Mediocre Poker (oops...self-pimp...gotta control that or I may go blind...) and claims:

Some folks might not like the massive number of affiliate deals he pimps...

I'll make a deal, I will remove an affiliate link each time someone signs up to a poker room through my link.

Actually, better make that ten people...

Actually, screw it! If I like a site, it gets pimped - poker room, blog, or otherwise. I like the affiliate links - they make my blog look classy, don't they? Anyway, they add a much needed splash of colour and online poker rooms are cool - period.

I will make one promise though - I'll try to inject some non-pimp content into my writings every now and then. Do we have a deal? Cool!!

Seriously - PokerStage - what are you waiting for? Tell Falstaff I say hi.

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In case anyone cares, you can find this site by simply typing in "Mediocre Poker" in any of the major search engines. What does this say about me as a poker player? Nothing good...

Keep reading "If only this title were wittier..."

My birthday was last weekend?!

I guess the Poker Gods didn't get the memo. My birthday was last weekend! And in playing last weekend, I quickly realized that the Poker Gods had completely abandoned me in my time of celebration. Luckily, they felt guilty enough and paid me a visit this weekend, bringing me tidings of joy and some long-sought-after winnings.

It all started on Friday night. MrVercetti and Marlborough (aka John from previous posts - I'm told that he wanted a cooler name...) came over for some poker and beer.

Before they arrived, I'd been pissing around with setting up some affiliate stuff on the site. Don't worry, I won't be adding any more affiliates any time soon - unless PokerStars gets back to me. And just for you, Huma, you'll find no less than five affiliate links in this post. I can't buck the trend now...

As MrV and Marl showed up, I was just about to shut down the laptop and start drinking in earnest. As I was preparing to shut down Outlook, I noticed an e-mail from Royal Vegas Poker. I hadn't played there for quite a while (originally signed up last summer due to a "$10 instant cash with no deposit" deal) but I checked out the e-mail anyway.

For future reference, I love getting poker site spam! There are so many deals all the time, it's great! The only thing better is getting real life junk mail from the poker rooms. Again, lots of deals and cool things (like mousepads and DVDs).

Long story long, Lou Krieger tells me that it's been a while since I've played at Royal Vegas Poker and that they miss me. So, they're personally offering me (and millions more I'd think) a special deal: make any deposit up to $100, play 100 raked hands, and they'll give me a 20% deposit bonus. 100 raked hands! After playing at Interpoker (they offer a stackable, mostly-non-expiring monthly reload bonus of 100% up to $90 although it's a little tough to clear at micro-limits), this deal seemed too good to be true!

So I launched Royal Vegas Poker on the laptop, made a $100 deposit, then shut down for the night. The bonus would have to wait until Saturday...

Anyway, I had a couple more beers as my wife and the gang watched Spies Like Us (hilarious) and The Office (hilarious-er). Then, it was time for poker.

Since Marl had not been playing any poker as of late, I suggested that we could play HORSE (or our own bastardizing of HORSE - more like DONKEY). Since we were only three-handed, we decided to play two rounds of each game before moving on to the next. And we also decided to replace the Stud 8 or better with Omaha Hi/Lo.

We decided to set the limits at 2c/4c (no high-rollers here). That way, we could play crazy without worrying about losing money. It's funny...I'd never play 2c/4c online but in real life with real cash, I'm far more comfortable playing where the stakes are non-existant.

Now, I'm not sure how close were to playing Razz properly. And I'm damned sure that we messed up the Stud ganes. But it was still lots of fun. I made my money playing Hold'em and the Omahas and MrV made a killing on the Razz. By the end of the night, I was up 25 cents and MrV was up $1.25; unfortunately, Marl lost his entire $1.50 buy-in. At least everyone seemed to have fun.

As for the rest of the weekend, I'll spare everyone the details.

I cleared the 100 raked hands at Royal Vegas Poker in about 2 hours. I made just over $3 playing and with the extra $20 bonus, that made for a profitable couple of hours. I haven't added the bonus to my bankroll on my sidebar since it won't show up in my Royal Vegas account until February 1st.

For the rest of the weekend, I played at Interpoker. I had to play another 99 raked hands to finish off my October deposit bonus and I was hell bent on getting that done.

It took me about 6 hours to do it. You see, at Interpoker, any hand above $5 is considered a raked hand. However, unless the rake reaches $1, the hand counts as 1/4 of a raked hand towards clearing bonuses. So, at the 0.50/1 tables, you're looking at about 20 raked hands per dollar of bonus. While this seems steep, the generally fishy weekend play at Interpoker and the generous reload bonuses keep this site at the top of my play list.

So, after 6 hours at Interpoker, I found myself up another $120. I actually made $30 from my play alone, which is about $30 more than I thought I would. I got some good cards, made some good plays, and everything seemed to come together. I'm hoping that this is a sign that my limit game is back on track. Only time will tell I guess...

What's next for me? I still have 24 SNGs to play in order to finish off my 100 SNGs in 100 days challenge. This challenge has been a real money sink for me lately. My SNG play could not be worse and this is showing in my bankroll. Actually, maybe I'm being too results-oriented. My play has not been all that bad - maybe I'm letting my bankroll dictate my play. I'm going to buckle down and beat this challenge into submission over the next little while.

I've also got my $100 NL TigerGaming challenge. I was up as high as 76% complete but donked off $20 last week to put me back in the mid-50s for my completion percentage. To beat this bastard, I'm going to have to go back to fundamentals. Sure, I've been a bit unlucky. But I have to learn to fold top pair and the occasional overpair when some fishy player pushes all-in. Still, my BB/100 at these $5 NL games is sky high, so a little variance and bad luck is to be expected.

Anyway, I'm going to come up with some new and exciting (for me, boring for you) challenges. These include clearing a pending $25 bonus at Interpoker by playing $1/$2 limit poker. I've got to make the jump and now's the time to do it. If I lose 300 BBs, then I'll drop back to the 0.50/1 games. But I have to try and move up before I stagnate in the micro-limits. I'm a smart (enough) guy: I know the math, I have PokerTracker/PokerAce, and I know the plays. I just need to put it together and do it.

I will also try the $25 NL tables at Interpoker in preparation for the $25 NL tables at PartyPoker.

The future is bright, ladies and gentlemen. There's no better feeling than having a winning couple of days and regardless of what happens next, it's gonna be a great ride. I know that anyone reading this has felt (or will feel) this way many times throughout his/her poker career and it's what keeps us coming back.

Have a great day everyone! More posts to come later today, if I have time, or tomorrow.

Keep reading "My birthday was last weekend?!"

Now that one hurt...

"Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies. Rivers and seas boiling."
"Forty years of darkness. Earthquakes, volcanoes..."
"The dead rising from the grave."
"Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria."

That one quote from Ghostbusters describing the coming Apocalypse describes the way I felt last night while "playing" the game we love to hate...

It seems that there are two things wrong with the way I played poker last night. First, I refused to lay down my hands in the face of a huge re-raise or all-in bet. And secondly, I am getting far too unlucky.

The evening started off quite well. I sat down at Interpoker and played some 0.50/1 limit poker. After running over my first table and staying somewhat afloat at a couple other tables, I managed to eek out a $6 profit in just under an hour.

I would have won more had I not missed a bunch of flops with my AK hands. Also, having my pocket aces and pocket kings cracked stung a little too.

I won't complain though - a win is a win and I'm closer to clearing my Interpoker bonus.

The real fireworks started at the TigerGaming $5 NL tables later in the evening. I was up $4 after the first hour - not too bad considering the quality of the hands I was picking up pre-flop.

Then, it all fell apart...

I pick up rockets on the button. 5 limpers to me, I raise to 4xBB pre-flop and everyone folds. Crap...I guess my table image was too tight.

Five hands later, I pick up rockets again! Sweet! I raise to 5xBB and get one caller. Flop comes down 7 7 5. My opponent bets the pot. At this point, I wasn't even thinking clearly about what he was holding. I couldn't imagine him calling a 5xBB pre-flop raise with any hand containing a 7 or a 5 - although I never considered pocket 7s or pocket 5s. I was thinking that he had a high Ax hand or possibly a pocket pair in the range of 88 - JJ.

So I re-raise my opponent the pot and he calls. The turn comes down with a blank. He checks, I check. At this point, I'm thinking he definitely has a medium pocket pair or an AK/AQ/AJ.

When the river comes down with a K, my opponent pushes all-in.

At this point, my wife, who was now back from the candle party (it's actually a party where they buy candles and not code for something else...go figure), looks at me and reminds me that I can't push the rest of my stack in with only an overpair. She reminds me of the cardinal rule of NL poker: don't go broke with top pair (in my case, overpair).

However, my gut is telling me that he has an AK so I call. My opponent shows a K7o and takes the pot with his full house. Ouch...I misplayed this hand terribly. I am a donkey! I don't mind my re-raise on the flop - there are only 14 hands that beat me and all but three of them are even remotely likely. In the end, I guess four of the possible bad holdings were likely and I paid the price for putting so much bloody stock in my mighty aces!

At this point, I'm only down $2 for the session. I should've shut her down considering my bad play. Ahh...but the tiltin' feelin' was a-callin' me down the path to ruin. That all-too-familiar path littered with the scattered remains of the fish and donkeys who'd come before me.

Ten minutes later, I pick up rockets again! For those counting, the fourth such occurrence of the evening if we include the one at Interpoker. Although I seemed quite happy on the outside, I was feeling that ball of tilty-fear in my stomach: I was only wondering how my aces would get cracked this time.

I raised it up to 50 cents pre-flop yet again and, as is usually the case when I raise with a premium hand, I got one caller. When the flop came K K T and my opponent pushed all-in for his last $1.25, I was being laid 2 to 1 odds on my call.

If my opponent held KK, TT, or AK pre-flop, I thought he would've pushed when I raised the pot to 1/3 of his remaining stack. Since the odds of hitting trips is only 7.5:1 (and since my other opponent flopped trips the last time I had aces), I figured my opponent most likely held a hand like AT, QT, or JT.

I called and my opponent showed KT for the flopped full-house. Oh Poker Gods - what have I done to offend thee? Is it the bad advice I give other players? Is it the constant bitching about my play and my luck? Is it that I wasn't wearing my somewhat-lucky Interpoker baseball cap?

Anyway, by that point in time I was down about $7. I was picking up a lot of good pre-flop raising hands and missing a lot of flops. It's hard to call a pot-sized bet when all you hold is two overcards...

I lost another chunk when my KQs ran into an AK. The table's chip-leader had failed to raise with his AK pre-flop; instead, he allowed me to do it with my KQs when 6 limpers entered the pot. I bet 2/3 of the pot on the flop with a backdoor straight and backdoor flush draw and the chip leader called. When a K hit on the turn, I bet the pot when the chip-leader checked to me and he called. We both checked the river and I took the hit.

Some more money was lost when my QQ when I ran into another player's KQ. He raised $2 pre-flop and I called. When the flop came A high, I thought I was probably screwed and both me and my opponent checked to the showdown. He won the hand after a K fell on the river - I had position on him and I guess he was hoping I'd put out a bet at the end. Should I have pushed on the flop? I was pretty sure he had the ace...

The only good hand that I played during my tilt phase were some pocket tens. It was min-raised pre-flop and I just called from the big blind. There were four of us seeing the flop: when it came down 8 6 2, I was pretty damned happy! I imagined myself raking a large pot.

I bet out 2/3 of the pot trying to find out how I was sitting compared to everyone else. Well, the first opponent re-raised to $1. The second opponent re-raised to $1.50 and my third opponent called.

At this point, I thought back to previous hands. What was I supposed to do if a big raise came back to me and I only held one pair? Oh yeah...fold...crap!!

I thought long and hard. I had an overpair! But with a raise and re-raise coming back to me, I couldn't believe that I was ahead in the hand. I reluctantly folded.

When the showdown finally came, the original raiser had an A8 for top pair (on the flop), the re-raiser held KK and the other caller had QQ. My goodness, I'm glad I got out of there.

Anyway, that was my night. I now find myself down further for the month. All is not lost though: last night's lessons were costly, but I'm hoping against hope that they will stick with me this time.

I made some bad calls, for sure. However, I can't play scared thinking that my heads-up opponents have hit trips on a paired board. I also can't always be afraid that my opponent has me dominated in the hand, either through a shared card or an overpair.

I will stick with it and I will prevail. My $90 bonus will be cleared this weekend and that will put me up for the month and hopefully give me the confidence to keep playing my game.

Anyway, that's it for now. Feel free to slam my craptastic play - I can take it. I'll just have to take it out on my opponents at the tables...

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I've been reading SirFWALGMan's blog recently...that guy is a crazy bastard! We couldn't have more different playing styles, attitudes about poker, gambling and especially bankroll management.

That being said, Sir's blog is a good read. I think it's the "train wreck" thing coming into play. However, his brutal honesty with regards to his poker play and his life in general keeps the pace of his blog going. You can't help but check back to see whether he's hit it big or lost his entire bankroll.

To give you an idea of the type of player SirFWALGMan is/was (don't know how much has changed in since June 2005 - that's where I am in his archives), here's an excerpt:

Well I hate to say this but you all deserve the truth from me: I blew my bankroll again! You know the old story. I started on a small downturn to around 2200 and decided to really screw-up. The old tendencies came back and before I knew it I was out. Well, not totally. I think I have 50 bucks to rebuild with. I did take out some money before the crash too. Not nearly enough though.

So, if you're looking for sound bankroll management talk and a slow and steady climb to the top of the poker world, stick around here.

But if you're looking for the exciting ups and downs of a degenerate gambler (Sir's own words, not mine), go check out Sir's blog.

Crazy f*cker...

Keep reading "Now that one hurt..."

Breaking even for the win

It seems that PokerDominator counts a day played without losing any money as a winning day. I guess it's the whole glass half-empty, half-full thing. With that in mind, I guess I had winning night at Interpoker.

I played for just over an hour last night at Interpoker's $0.50/$1 FL tables but managed to make a small comeback to break even. As is usually the case, I found myself down about 14 BBs within the first 30 minutes of play. Although I was stealing pots and blinds when I could, I missed enough flops in raised pots to really cost me.

There were two hands that made me some money and, surprisingly enough, these hands were not any of the big 5 (AA,KK,QQ,JJ,AK).

The first hand to net me a tidy little profit of +10BBs was good old presto (55). I pick this up in the CO. I limp after 3 other limp into the pot and the button raises it up. We go to the flop with five of us in the pot.

Flop comes 5 7 7. Bingo! We all check to the button who bets and I decide to simply call. A raise here wouldn't have knocked anyone out, netting me an extra $1.50 (two people folded to button's bet), however I had my eyes on a bigger prize.

When the turn comes with a king, the table really opens up. The guy to my right bets, I call and the button raises. It gets back to me and I make it 3 bets - it doesn't get capped but we head to the river.

When the river comes down with a second K, I'm thinking I'm f*cked. The heavy betting on the turn worried me, so I just checked it down. Is this too wimpy? If I bet, anyone without the king is going to fold and anyone with the king is going to raise it up.

Anyway, my 5s full of Ks held up and I took down a good sized pot. Had it not been for that second king, I would have made an extra $3 and been up for the night. I'm guessing that both of my opponents had a 7 since there were no flush or straight possibilities on the table.

Moving along, the second hand that allowed me to break even was the mighty A2o. When everyone folded to the blinds, I raised it up from the SB and the BB called - heads up to the flop. Flop comes A 2 x. I rammed and jammed my way to the river and took down the $8 pot.

In playing for the hour, I earned myself another 4% completion towards the $90 Interpoker bonus. Sweet!

I don't have anything witty or funny to add at this point. Maybe this afternoon, who knows?

All I can say is that I'm definitely playing tonight. My wife is heading out to a "candle" party so I'll have a lot of time to kill at the tables. Although my good luck charm will be away, I'll have to do my best to stay afloat. I'm hoping to clear another 5%-10% of the Interpoker bonus and possibly squeeze in some NL play at TigerGaming.

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I brought yogourt with me to work today for breakfast but forgot to bring a spoon. How's that for a metaphor on life?

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I went downstairs at lunch and bought some soup for lunch. The soup came with a spoon. Soup and yogourt have been eaten. Both left something to be desired - wish I could have had a bacon cheeseburger instead...

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Work is kicking my ass today. Sorry, no real afternoon posts. You can, however, read some of the fine blogs I've listed to the right of the page. Seriously, don't be a prick about it - just give them a chance.

Keep reading "Breaking even for the win"

The afternoon ramble...

I'll tell ya - just when I find myself wondering why I even bother to play poker, much less write about it, I just need to sit back and read the exploits of the other crazy bastards doing the same thing.

Any time I hear about some big win, I can't wait to sit back down at the tables.

Every time I hear about a new bonus being offered (courtesy of the fine work done over at BonusWhores - I think any time you type the word "whore", you're in for more hits - I'll quickly check out the when and how and figure out whether it's do-able.

And every time someone visits my site, subscribes to my feed (there are now 2 other subscribers out there besides myself - thanks Al and MrVercetti), or comments on one of my posts, I can't wait play.

So thanks everyone for forcing me to gamble away my hard earn winnings - I'll see you in the soup line.

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Chris over at The Making of a PokerPro e-mailed me asking for a link. His site is still very new and he seems to be new to the poker blogging thing in general, but I'll give him a shout-out. Another new blogger, another guy with the balls to play higher stakes than me. Until I grow a set, check him out and support his growth as a poker blogger (cuz there's not enough of us already out there...).

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PokerStars has yet to get back to me about their affiliate program, although this could be due to a spam filtering issue. We'll see...

In other pimpin' news, I got my Paradise Poker affiliate code. Too many affiliates? Never! If I get even one person to sign up, I'll be happy. Plus, I think it's cool having all the blinking pixels on my site. Everyone loves busy, blinking, mismatched sites, right?

Also, Titan Poker got back to me about my affiliate code. I need to make sure I've got my link set up properly...

If anything, Klopzi's Mediocre Poker will be known as a site where the money talks...and no one listens. It's gonna be sweet...

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Being similar to other poker bloggers out there, I like to do a quick search everyday to see if anyone has foolishly linked to this site. Well, today I found a new blog called Freeroll 2 Bankroll written by doubleuwhy.

Actually, he seems to have a bunch of blogs if you look at his profile, but I have a feeling many are simply "concept" sites that were mistakenly published. Considering that I accidentally trashed my entire blog in the space of 10 minutes and had to scramble for 30 minutes to get it up and running before the weekend started, I can understand where he's coming from.

This guy's catch is that he's trying to build a bankroll without depositing any real money - like yours truly. Will he be able to pull off the Klopzi? Or will he end up in the gutter, no better or worse than he was when he started? My money's on pulling it off since it takes a lot of patience and time to build up some scratch by playing in freerolls and living off the occasional scraps thrown to you by various sites.

There you go doubleuwhy - an freeroll pimping...good luck!

Keep reading "The afternoon ramble..."

Finally I break even...

That's right - I broke even last night after a few days of losing. My trick: I stayed away from my laptop. I'm hoping that the night off will have given my game the focus it needs. I guess we'll find out tonight.

My wife and I were actually out shopping for a good portion of the evening. We went to Wal-Mart to pick up some specific items, then my impulse shopping kicked in and we bought a lot more.

Then, I popped over to an EB Games in the same strip mall while my wife started doing some grocery shopping. After searching the shelves for about 10 minutes, I had to resign myself to the fact that EB Games did not have any good used games in stock.

I dejectedly made my way back to the grocery store. When I met up with my wife, the groceries were just about finished and we were going to head home for dinner. My wife suggested that we swing by another EB Games on the way home to see if they had any of the games that I wanted.

Fifteen minutes later, I'm at EB Games #2 while my wife picks up our dinner at the Quizzno's Subs next door. I get to Quizzno's just as my wife is paying for our subs, once again dragging my feet and complaining about the suckiness that is EB Games' previously played selection.

I'm ready to head home at this point and have dinner when my wife suggests that we make one final stop at Microplay to check for used games. So we stop in and I make my way to the back of the store. And lo and behold, they have a used copy of Psychonauts. Sweet! So I trade in my copies of RE4 and Jak II and I'm on my way home with a new game...

The rest of the evening was pretty relaxing. My wife and I had dinner and watched 24 and CSI:Miami. Afterwards, I played videogames until my eyes started bleeding.

And, for those of you interested, Psychonauts is pretty good so far. Much more gripping than Jak II was, in any case.

This evening's activities will assuredly contain some poker playing. I'm going to see if there are any limit games running at Interpoker (I want to clear that damned bonus); if not, it's Tiger NL time!

I'll post more this afternoon, I'm sure. And it will be purely poker-related...I think.

Ok, back to work for me.

Keep reading "Finally I break even..."

Finally, someone understands me...

*** WARNING: This post will be one of those run-on posts where there's some good stuff and some bad stuff all rolled up into one. There will be some pokah! talk as well as some videogame talk...so spend your reading time as you see fit.***

So, I was checking bloglines and found a new post by hdouble where he describes the different player personalities sorted by their bankroll management styles. Seeing as how I'm all about the bankroll, I thought I'd check the list and see where I fit in.

Surprisingly enough, hdouble describes me to a tee with the following personality:

6. The overly bankrolled player
DESCRIPTION: Solid player, but playing at a level where his win rate is significantly less than his hourly wage. Much like the high roller, financial losses have absolutely no effect on this player. This player takes the game seriously, and believes that he should "work his way up" through the limits before playing at a level where losses might cause minor financial pain.
PLAYING STYLE: Since this player takes poker seriously, losses will often have a strong emotional affect on the player. If this type of player goes on tilt, they are likely to try to run over the table like the high roller.

That's it! That's me! How many times have I said that I wanted to work my way up? How many times have I wondered why I'd bother playing poker for such a puny amount of money? Well, I do it because I take my poker seriously. And when I tilt, I tilt hard.

Go check out hdouble's post for the other bankroll types out there - it's a good read.

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Oh Jebus! It's time for some more keyword fun!

poker ace hud aggression factor determining
For those of you looking how to correlate a player's real life aggression with their PokerTracker numbers, here's a quick overview:

• 0 - 1: Generally passive players - if they bet or raise, look out! These players are the easiest to play against although they will often suck out on you. I also find that players with an aggression factor this low are very hard to push off a pot.
• 1 - 2.5: Pretty aggressive - they will raise when they should and they may try to bully you occasionally. Many players fall within this range.
• 2.5 - 4.0: These are the typical numbers for a smart, aggressive player. These players will do their best to ruin your odds when drawing and they will make you pay dearly if you decide to showdown a second best hand. You do not want to play with many of these types at your table.
• 4.0+: These players are the maniacs. They are always raising and betting on every street. To counter these types of players, let them take the lead in the hand and re-raise them on the later streets if you find yourself with a good hand. Be careful to not undervalue their hand but be aware that they will make you gamble a little on every hand you play against them. These players will sometimes fold if they face pure unadulterated aggression in return - they may be aggressive but are not always stupid.

Be sure to cross-check the aggression numbers with the VP$IP numbers for a given player: TAGs may come across as maniacs when they are simply picking up good cards and playing their hands well.

pokerace hud registration key
Not a problem - buy one here. Or were you looking for a registration code of questionable legality...filthy criminals...

shin megami tensei: nocturne demons
It's good to know that I'm not the only one playing PS2 games involving sexually-ambiguous demons and weird little red guys sporting giant striped strap-on dildos (I shit you not...). I'm not sure what these people are looking for exactly...yes, the game has demons in it. Check out GameFAQs or GameSpot for more info.

winning texas hold'em matt maroon book review
So far, so good...

bikiniwax before and after
I definitely did not see this one coming...AOL's search engine is totally p0wned by Google...

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***NERD ALERT***

So, my mother-in-law got me a $25 EB Games gift card for my birthday and it's burning a hole in my pocket. After work tonight, it's off to the store to buy some new games.

While I'm there, I'll be trading in a couple games. I finished Resident Evil 4, including the mini-game Separate Ways starring Ada Wong. I found the game to be pretty good - story was pretty solid, voice acting was ok, script was shit, and some of the moments in the game were horrifying. Actually, it was all about the jump scares and I scare easily. I almost had a heart attack the other night when I was staring through a sniper scope and some bad guy jumped up in front of me. It was almost exactly like the scene at the start of Episode IV where a Tusken Raider attacks Luke...

So, RE4 is getting traded in. I'm also getting rid of Jak II. It's hard, it's annoying, and I'm not into it. The first Jak and Daxter game was funny, cheery, light and loads of fun. This new Jak, the darker, grittier version, just doesn't do it for me. Much like POP: Warrior Within, I think they overdid it with the "darkness".

I really don't like the GTA-like, free-to-explore world they've got going in the game. I loved GTA III, I really loved Vice City...but I didn't buy Jak II to play GTA. And that's why it's going tonight - well, that and the difficulty and the crappy story-line. That's my opinion anyway - I know GameSpot gave Jak II 9.1/10 so what do I know?

Anyway, here's a list of games that I'd like to get if I see them used:

1. Psychonauts: By the same guy who did Lucasarts' Grim Fandango! Supposed to be funny and weird, all at the same time!
2. Metal Gear Solid 3: Cinematic, nice to look at, snake eating, and vomiting all rolled up in one. It doesn't get any better than that...
3. Silent Hill 3 or SH4: Either one of these would be ok. I've always wanted to play a game that would damage me psychologically and these would do the trick. I tend to pass out if I see someone horribly injured or disfigured, so if I don't write tomorrow just know that I'm passed out in front of my couch in a puddle of my own saliva/vomit/beer/ravioli.
4. Sly Cooper 3: This may be a pipe dream. It's funny how much I love Sly Cooper (not in that kind of way...although he does have opposable thumbs...). The first game in the series was great, the second game was, for lack of a better word, fan-f*cking-tastic! And I hear the third game in the series is just slap-tastic as the first two games!

In addition to any new games I pick up this evening, I also picked up a new game this weekend. It's called Shadow of the Colussus and it's pretty amazing. The premise is that your some girly-man trying to save some girl. I don't' know why the main character looks like a woman. I don't know what's wrong with the girl laying on some altar. All I know is that some booming Japanese-ish voice tells the main character to go out and kill some giant baddies.

And when I say "giant", I mean it. Imagine riding up to a mountain on a horse only to discover that it is not a mountain in front you. The mountain is, in fact, a rather large baddie intent on crushing you.

Although each of these boss battles (there are only boss battles in the game) has its own little quirks and nuances, the general gist of the fights is the same. You find a way to climb onto these behemoths and hang on for dear life looking for a good place to plant your sword.

When you find a sweet spot, you keep hacking away as the blood erupts in huge geysers. Eventually, tons-o-fun will fall down and you get sent back to the dead/sick/sleeping girl and the booming Japanes-y voice.

You'll have to trust me - this game plays a lot cooler than I make it sound.

More rambling to come, I'm sure...

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Another blogger out there has won the Klopzi Free-Pimping award. And the winner is: Nick over at All In.

Rather than constantly bitching about losing (like me) and bragging about big wins (not like me), Nick tries to add a little strategy to the mix and discusses various issues that all newer players face.

So check out Nick's site - it's worth the visit.

Keep reading "Finally, someone understands me..."

Good birthday weekend, bad poker weekend...

The title of this post sums it up. I had a great long weekend spending time with my wife, friends, and family. I had so much to eat that it's almost disgusting (gaining 5 lbs. in four days can't be good for me) and I had a little to drink on Friday night. But you're not here to hear about how much ice cream cake I can eat in one sitting or how I ate my own weight in bacon on Saturday (my wife is the greatest!). What you want is to hear about how I crashed and burned at the tables; if that is the case, you're gonna like this post.

It all started on Friday night as I jumped on the exercise bike in preparation for all the eating that was to take place that evening. I thought it'd be a good idea to fire up Interpoker for some 0.50/1.00 action.

Long story short - I made the mistake of playing at a table with a maniac. Every hand was raised pre-flop and he would bet or raise at almost every opportunity. When I picked up AA on my second hand at the table, I thought I was golden.

I re-raised the maniac, got cold-called by the button, maniac caps it, and both myself and the button call. Three way pot. Flop comes T 8 4. Perfect! Maniac checks, I bet and the button raises?! When the maniac re-raises making it two bets to me, I should have folded. Instead, I call and the button calls.

Turn is a 4. Maniac bets, I raise trying to isolate, but the button won't play along. He raises it and the maniac caps it. Now, you're probably thinking, "Klopzi, for the love of fuck, please tell me you dropped those aces like the Sens dropped the Leafs this weekend!" (sorry, big Sens fan and I hate the Leafs).

Well, not only did I not drop my aces, but I capped that mofo and both the button and the maniac call.

River is a blank. Maniac checks, I bet (seemingly forgetting the old adage of "Don't bet if a worse hand will fold but a better hand will call or raise), and both players call. I'm just lucky they didn't raise...

Well, the maniac won with his J4s, giving him trip 4s. The button was holding a T8o and had hit two pair on the flop. So basically, I was playing from behind the whole time. Pathetic...that hand cost me far more than it should have.

By the time my hour of cycling was up, I was only down 11 BBs by virtue of some solid play and some lucky cards. After the aces debacle, I had been down 25 BBs.

Later on Friday evening, full of Lone Star and booze, I sat down to play some $5 NL at TigerGaming hoping to make back the $11 I'd lost earlier. Although I didn't lose any money, I was only up $2 after an hour of play. I did, however, lose money on Saturday when my pocket kings ran into rockets for the 4th or 5th time in two weeks. Can I get the odds on that?

I also played 5 SNGs this weekend with horrific results. I placed third once and came in 6th or 7th in the other four. My piss-poor results were due to some weak-tight play on my part, coupled with some bad luck. I can't describe it any other way. In all the SNGs, my opponents were folding to my good hands and re-raising my bad hands. And there is nothing worse than sitting in level 5 and getting blinded away as you catch strings of 63o and 82s.

So, as you can see in my sidenav, I'm now down for the month both in terms of my poker goals and my weight loss goal. Sweet!

I think I'm going to take the night off from poker for the next couple days. By Thursday, we'll see where my confidence is at. I'm hoping that my game picks up again - I hate playing when I'm afraid to lose.

That's not to say that I won't be posting though. I'm sure I'll come up with something poker-ish to write about. Maybe later I'll describe some of my recent PS2 accomplishments. Don't worry - I'll make sure that I title the post in such a way that people looking to read my gay poker blog content aren't mistakenly forced to read my gay videogame blog content.

Keep reading "Good birthday weekend, bad poker weekend..."

Stages of a Poker Blogger (Part 2)

I have a ways to go before I'm able to complete my "Stages of a Poker Blogger" series. Honestly, I'm writing this based solely on my experiences so far and from what I've read on some other blogs. However, I believe I've entered Stage 7 and it's gonna be a fun one...

Stage 7: What's happening?
Stage 6 was a rough one. I remember the feeling that I had regarding poker and I didn't like it. I wanted to get good at poker, I wanted to play poker: I just couldn't get myself excited about it.

Then, over the Christmas holidays, I started to feel it. Kinda like "feeling the force", just not as gay (actually, this is a poker blog which makes it all the more gay). I was playing SNGs and it all seemed pretty easy. I didn't need great cards to win - I just needed to play my game and the money would come.

This stage that I'm in right now has shown a marked improvement in my play and in my ability to analyze my play on and off the tables. I've found myself thinking critically about plays and coming up with conclusions as to what I should and should not have done. Perhaps my analysis is not always spot on, but that will come in later stages. What is important is that I like to play poker again.

This stage also seems to come with a renewed interest in learning. In my case, it's reading more blogs and reading books. It's watching poker on TV and trying to pick up anything I can that will help my game. In fact, this interest has rubbed off on my wife who can now watch a WSOP circuit event and matter-of-factly state that so and so is obviously bluffing and then go on to list the tells through use of my PVR's pause and rewind functionality.

As part of the learning process, I think bloggers in this stage also feel like giving back to the community by providing advice on their blogs. Myself, I seem to provide a good mix of obvious advice coupled with some really bad advice. The good advice gets more people playing and the bad advice lets me win more often. I'm kidding of course - I do believe that my bad advice is good advice at the time. That's why my bankroll doesn't really go up all that quickly.

Even though much of my advice is probably wrong when viewed by those in the know, I think it does help newer players grasp certain key elements of the game by presenting them in a manner more suitable to the stakes and the games they're playing. At this point, my blog is mainly here for my own introspection into my game and to illicit a willingness to play and learn in others...Actually, my blog is mainly here to promote the affiliated sites that I've listed all over the place and to get people to give me Amazon.ca click-throughs but I'm hoping you won't hold that against me.

Although my game has improved as of late, I know that the stage following this one will be marked by a huge leap in my abilities at the table. Either that or the dreaded plateau stage. A plateau stage is much like a hiatus stage - it's just a matter of how much time is spent playing poker. A poker blogger on hiatus plays little poker and avoids writing anything in the blog until all the tilty feelings go away. A plateau involves lots of poker that goes nowhere coupled with infrequent blog entries all saying the same thing: "I don't know what's wrong lately? I just can't seem to..."

In either case, marked improvement or plateau, I'm not in a hurry.

For those out there reading this, I just hope that by reading what I have to write, you'll start to feel the pull that poker holds over many of those who play. It's more than just chips and cards, more than the Guiness and SoCo consumed while playing, it's more than the money won or lost.

It's about patience required to sit at a table for hours and do absolutely nothing...then write about it.

It's about learning all that you can then taking that misinterpreted information and writing about it.

It's about the drive to be better than everyone else and not just the donkeys at the nickel and dime NL ring games. If you do well, you write about it. If you're the donkey, you lie about it.

It's about the heart required to play the game when everything's on the line and your only options are to fold or push it all in one last time - followed by the desire to write about it regardless of how it all turned out.

Lastly, it's about the love of the game and trying to share that with your readers and with those you're robbing blind at the tables. If you don't love the game, I guarantee that you'll end up a loser at the tables and you'll lose your readership. And we all know that without readership, you'll never get anyone to sign up with the many wonderful affiliates advertised all throughout your site!

And so, I will continue to grow as a player and as a poker blogger (and as an affiliate pimp). I'd say that I can't wait to start playing in the bigger games, but that's not true. My career thus far has exemplified a certain amount of patience coupled with a certain fear or unwillingness to push myself as far as I could go. At least I can write about it; it brings some comfort knowing that no matter what, there will always be a select group of people who've wasted a portion of their lives reading my gay blog.

Keep reading "Stages of a Poker Blogger (Part 2)"

Another year older and still making mistakes...

For those of you who may not know, tomorrow is my birthday. What does that mean? 3 days and 3 nights of pure unadulterated fun and food. The old diet is gonna have to take a back seat this weekend.

Last night started off with some tourtiere (meat pie for those you not living in Canada), shrimp dip and a chocolate mint truffle brownie ice cream cake (as good as it sounds) courtesy of my mom. That and a few glasses of sparkling wine.

Tonight, my wife and I are heading out to the Lone Star Cafe with most of the people I know for some food and booze. What did I always eat when I went to the Lone Star growing up? The Southern Fried Combo: basically, a deep-fried steak and a deep-fried chicken breast, fries and a couple side orders, all smothered in white Texas gravy. Unfortunately, they don't sell it anymore...stupid bastards! At least I'll get lots of beer and I'm sure I'll find some suitably deep-fried or otherwise unhealthy meat to go along with my drinks.

Tomorrow, quiet day at home with my wife. I'll probably play some poker, video games and watch some movies. Sunday - lunch with the in-laws. Monday, I'm taking the day off for more relaxing with my wife and poker (I know - surprising!).

So, it's gonna be a great long weekend! But before getting to the festivities, I'll have to face my demons from the SNG I played last night at PokerStars.

My wife and I got home around 10pm. I watched the last of the Sens vs. Mighty Ducks game on TV (Sens lost in a shoot-out) then fired up the laptop for some p-o-k-e-r. I only had $10 left at PokerStars; still, enough to cover the $5.50 needed for an SNG. By the way, I like to type "an SNG" as opposed to "a SNG" - it sounds better in my mind even though is it most likely grammatically incorrect. I know, I know - wtf?! Back to my story...

I'd like to say I made it ITM. But alas, it was not meant to be. And all because of a player called Slotted. He was a very aggressive player, raising most pots to 3xBB from the get-go. I decided that I'd have to wait for my moment then strike.

In level 2, I pick up AKs. When Slotted comes in for a 3xBB raise, I re-raise to about 7xBB. Slotted calls and the flop comes down 9 4 2. Slotted checks and I bet T300 into the T445 pot. Slotted calls. We both check the turn when a Q falls. The river brings a T and slotted bets T150 into the T1000 pot. I can't fold for such a little bet and call: I lose to Slotted's T8o. My mistake - I should have bet the turn. However, I just started reading T.J. Cloutier's book and he says that if you pot the flop and get called, you're done with the pot. Unfortunately, I misused his advice since I called the bet on the river. T.J. would've popped it on the turn, I think...

By level 3, I'm down to T850 and not going anywhere fast. My blinds are getting stolen but I'm too card dead to even try to defend. I finally push with T750 left and the blinds at 50/100. Three callers and I'm suddenly not feeling too good about my QJs. The flop comes Q T x, turn is a J and the river is an 8. I'm hoping that no one left has a 9; luckily, no one does and I've tripled up (one of the callers only had T130).

A few hands later, AQs on the button. When I raise to 3xBB from the button, the BB calls. Flop come Q x x rainbow. BB bets T300 into the T650 pot and I smooth call - I'm looking to trap. Turn is a rag so I put out a quarter pot bet when checked to me. I get the desired effect when the BB re-raises another T250 or so. I push and he calls. My top pair holds up and I've doubled up and taken the chip lead.

By the next level, we only had 5 players left. Then it all went bad. Slotted raises it from the SB to T400 and I call with my pocket nines. Flop comes 8 6 2 with two diamonds. Slotted bets T150 (he bet out on every flop in every hand he played) and I raise to T600 and he calls. Turn is another diamond and Slotted checks - I check too. River is a blank and Slotted bets T300 into the T2000 pot and I call thinking that I'm probably ahead. Nope, Slotted hit the nut flush on the turn with his A3s. Crap!

So now, I'm down to T2400 and in third place. A few orbits later, I pick up an 89s in the BB and call the min raise pre-flop from Slotted. Flop comes 9 4 2. I have top pair and a backdoor flush draw. Slotted bets out again - I raise to T500 with my top pair, confident that I'm ahead. Slotted raises to T1500.

Hmmm...at this point, I have two options: push or fold. I made the wrong decision and pushed. When Slotted insta-called, I knew I was down for the count. He shows pocket fours for his set and I'm out in 5th.

From first place to fifth in the space of two poorly played hands. Yuck! Yet again, I fail to learn the lesson of: Don't go broke with top pair! Maybe after I've learned this lesson another ten times, I'll finally get it.

Anyway, I was tilting a little bit due to my bad play. My wife tried to explain to me that I'd overplayed my top pair but I refused to listen. Instead, I sat down at one of PokerStars 6-person $10 NL ring games. I built my remaining $4.50 up to $6.95 before calling it quits for the night. I do have to say that I was pretty pleased with PokerStars' NL ring games. Nice soft play and lots of players who'll call you thinking you're on a bluff (much like I did in the SNG).

All this to say - I will be playing poker this weekend at the sites I have listed to the right. I'd put their names here, but I've done enough pimping already (actually, my Eurobet affiliate code is finally set up so feel free to check them out!).

Well, this post sucked ass...I apologize. I'm not thinking too clearly - just counting the minutes till it's time to leave! I going to try to play tonight at TigerGaming's $5 NL tables or PokerStars $10 NL tables. If I do, it'll be a bit later in the evening and I'll be drunk. I'll be the designated ATM at the tables...

Tomorrow afternoon, I'll be at Interpoker's 0.50/1.00 tables or still at Tiger's $5 tables trying to finish off my $100 Tiger Challenge.

Actually, if I do happen to finish off the $100 challenge, I may start the $500 Interpoker NL Challenge. This new challenge will involve me trying to win 20 buy-ins at the $25 NL tables (blinds are 0.25/0.50 I believe).

Shit! I am so damned excited...Ok, gotta calm down...who knew getting old could be this much fun?

Ok, end of post...sorry about the pimpage that inexplicably popped up at the end of the post...feel free to comment...still got the afternoon to kill...

Keep reading "Another year older and still making mistakes..."

Stupid, stupid, stupid...

Another night at the NL ring game tables, another slight addition to my bankroll. Although I was up by the time I went to bed, the night was truly marred by a spectacularly bad play on my part.

I decided to sit down at the $10 NL tables at Pacific Poker (another affiliate...I am shameless...) with the last of my bonus money. This money was just sitting there and I was unable to withdraw it due to wagering requirements.

It only took me 50 minutes to lose it all and I still can't believe that I make the same mistakes over and over again. Here's the scoop:

I'd been card dead for the last 20 minutes and I'm down to $7.40. Suddenly I've picked up JJ and I'm dreaming of all the money I'm gonna make. Three limpers to me in late middle position (MP3); I make it 50 cents to go. I can feel all the high rollers out there smirking...

Guy on the button re-raises to $1 and all fold to me and I call. Flop comes down 6 6 9. With $2.35 in the pot, I bet $3. Why did I bet so high? Was I trying to commit all my chips to this one pot? Why not bet $1 or $2 and see what happens? Well, the button comes back at me for all my chips.

Hmmm...I've got an overpair and I'm being put all in. What could he have re-raised me with pre-flop? A big pair? Likely but I was hoping that I wasn't getting cold-decked yet again with a big pair. Big drawing hand (AK, AQ, etc.)? Very possible. A hand with a 6 in it? Pretty unlikely, although I've had my share of bad luck when making this assumption. A hand with a 9 in it? Possible.

Here are the things that I missed that led me to making a bad call:

1. I had a tight table image, having not played a single hand for the past 20 minutes - chances are the button had the goods.
2. There were already 3 limpers in the pot, so the chances of the button thinking that I was on a steal were nil.
3. By over-betting the pot, it made it look like I may be trying to buy the pot while also making it easy for the button to put me to the test for all my chips.
4. When a player re-raises the pre-flop raiser all in, he's usually got something good.

Obviously I made the wrong move and called off all my chips. The button turned over cowboys and I was dead to two outs which never came...

I have lost many times to this exact play. I've got to learn how to play big pairs I guess. Either that or stop pushing all in with only a pair! Phil Gordon would be rolling in his grave were he not alive and winning more money on a single hand than I have in my bankroll.

Anyway, the hits continued at TigerGaming...I pick up TT and raise it to 5xBB and get two callers. Flop comes AKT. I've got both players well covered at this point and push - both call. One guy shows KK and the other AJs. Set over set?! Saw that happen to Ted Forrest the other day on High Stakes Poker on GSN. Luckily for me, I only lost an extra $1.50 when I won the side pot with Mr. AJs when he missed his flush.

Other than that, I got beat by rivered flushes four out of the six times that I put someone all-in when they were on a draw. However, I did play pretty solid and started throwing my weight around with my big stack (I was up to $23 at one table where the max buy-in is $5).

All in all, up around $2 on the night. That puts me at about 10 BB/100 for my play all evening - not great but I'll take it. It's just a shame that the BB in this case is only 10 cents...

Well, going to my mom's place for dinner tonight with my wife so I may not get to play this evening. If I do, it'll be an SNG at Party or at PokerStars (surprisingly, still no affiliate code...) Going out with friends tomorrow night (freaky - the lights just went out here at the office...) but I may play some drunken poker when I get home.

Ok the lights keep going on and off so I'd better wrap it up...

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Another new blogger: check out Huma at Humanaut's Boring Poker Blog. Yet another new online player making a better go at it than me. Still, any new players out there brave enough to hit the NL ring games have more of a fighting spirit than I and they deserve to do well.

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I have a sneaking suspicion that, in my haste, I've set up my affiliate links wrong. That would be something to worry about if people were visiting this site in droves. I guess it's something I'll get to fix on my birthday as I sit around in boxer shorts and eat cake...

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Just read something funny - I've been there before:

Ex-employee: I just got let go.
Employee: Really? What did they say?
Ex-employee: "Bye."

- Overheard in the office

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Go check out Overheard in the Office - they have some funny sh*t! I guess the site's comprised of numerous conversations overheard at various workplaces. I'll put one more here that I found particularly funny, but after that, you're on your own.

4PM Order Supplies
Co-worker #1: Can I borrow a colored pen?
Co-worker #2: Here's a red one, but I may need it later for drawing fire.

525 7th Avenue
New York, NY

Good to see that the people of NY are working so hard...

Keep reading "Stupid, stupid, stupid..."

Those who can't - advertise!

I didn't play last night...Instead, my wife and I sat down and watched back to back to back episodes of 24. Believe it or not, it's nice to step away from the tables and relax for a bit. I'm generally one of those people that needs to be doing two or three things at once, which makes nights like last night a rarity and a pleasure.

I think I'll revert to Stage 1 for a bit here and give a few shout-outs.

First, I've picked up a couple more affiliates: Full Tilt Poker and PartyPoker.

If you haven't played at Full Tilt, you're missing out. The site is clean, the sign-up bonus is great, and, most importantly, many of your favourite bloggers play there regularly. I have not played there yet, but I will when the fear of losing my roll to Al or Pauly in a good game of PLO dissipates. I have heard that the ring games can be tough, but what's the point of playing poker unless you're ready to learn and improve your skills against better opponents?

And PartyPoker...Intertops was gobbled up by Party and they are now one and the same. I can't say anything about PartyPoker that hasn't already been said elsewhere. Loose games, easy money, and lots of tournaments.

And while you're at it, don't forget about Interpoker and TigerGaming. There is lots of money to be made at both these places - I'm living proof.

Little overboard there, eh? Let me pass the focus back to my fellow bloggers out there desperate for hits:

• The Randomness of Hoff is a good read. Follow iamhoff in his quest to beat the $10 SNGs at PokerStars while avoiding tilt from the dreaded 97 offsuit...


• Alan over at The Silent 4 is in the process of building his bankroll much like me. However, he's got a little more experience under his belt than I do and has Alan's Rules to show for it. Go check it out...


• Dr. Pauly just posted some simple rules for playing PLO (pot limit Omaha). I think I'll give them a try this weekend.


• Matt just got back from the Bahamas and is now crushing the $40/$80 games at Paradise Poker.


• Kent is in the process of taking his money out of Casino.net and is looking to broaden his empire. Where will he go next? I have no idea...


• And don't forget Al, Felicia and the other bloggers out there.

So, are you wishing you could get the last 5 minutes of your life back? Me too...

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Man - work is kicking my ass today...

On a positive note, though, Falstaff's informed me that the low-limit ring games at Full Tilt are not as rough as I've been led to believe. So maybe I'll get a chance to work on a good 100% deposit bonus in the near future!

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One more pimp for the day: check out drewspop over at Hometown Poker. He's new to the blogger scene and giving it his all.

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I almost forgot, I'm picking up my books from the post office tonight! Sweet!

I've got lots of reading to do and lots of winning to do too. I'm about $120 off pace to hit my $5K bankroll goal by New Year's Eve 2006. So, I'll finish reading these books and hope that they transform me into the greatest player ever.

I am hoping to start playing at a level where I can start clearing these damned bonuses quickly. Seriously, it should not take me 40 hours to clear a $90 bonus. I only worry that when the time comes that where I clear $100 bonuses in a few hours, I'll be playing at such a high level that the bonus will be inconsequential.

What I'm trying to say is that I want free money...all the time... I don't have anything that I want to buy right now...

...well except for a house...

...and a lamborghini...

...that name always cracks me up - sounds like some sort of f*cked up pasta...

...I drive a Hyundai Accent...no wonder I blog...

Keep reading "Those who can't - advertise!"

Best. Month. Ever.

Thanks to you, my loyal readers, this site is experiencing it's best month ever. I've now had more hits in the first 17 days of the month than I had back in November. I hope everyone's getting something out of this. And if you're not, click on my affiliate links and buy some books from Amazon.ca. Seriously, I can't rely on my poker play to make me money. I've only made $26 so far this month and that's a good month!

Ok, so I get it, you don't want to buy in to the whole "free money for Klopzi" thing I've got going here. Well, as your punishment, it's time again for some keyword searches fun. And by fun, I mean not so fun - but I've got a few minutes and I don't feel like starting another work-related task today.

Here are some of the newest ways that people have found their way here over the past week (Phil Hellmuth blowup videos are still #1 though...):

1. its yugioh time bitches
   It certainly is...


2. "PokerAce Hud" "registration code"
   Need a registration code? No problem: take $25 and spend it here.


3. what the difference between pokerace and gametime
   Quality and usefulness - my vote is for PokerAce. Find it here.


4. law school dropout's poker blog
   This is a google blog search that was performed and I list it here for one simple reason. My site comes up as the 2nd result in this search. Who's first? Ironically enough, it isn't the Law School Dropout! Click here if you'd like to read a real poker blog.


5. what's the probabilities of a cold deck holdem
   Hmmm...I typically put the probability of a cold deck occurring running proportional to the quality of my hand. If I've got cowboys, somebody's gotta have aces. I'm holding Jacks, they're holding Queens. I'm holding AQ, they're holding AK.
   
   If you must have a specific answer, I'd say about 5%. If you want a realistic answer, the chances are a hell of a lot higher than you'd think or want. I am, of course, exaggerating somewhat and I don't really feel like doing the math: however, at a full table, the chances are well within the realm of possibility.
   
   Always remember that misfortune, as well as glory, are always only a single hand away. Play the good cards, play them hard, and don't worry about being cold decked.

So - who's up for some poker? Me too! I'm outta here!

Keep reading "Best. Month. Ever."

A little something for everyone

I wish I could say that I had a great night of playing last night. I wish I could say that I had a horrible night last night and lost half my bankroll. In fact, anything's more interesting than the reality of the three and a half hours that I spent hunched over my laptop.

For a change of venue, I went over to MrVercetti's to watch the Sens game (they beat Minnesota 6-1) on his 50" plasma TV. Just last week, MrVercetti had kindly wired up (I use this term very loosely) his living room for Internet, which meant one thing for me. Poker...

The game started and I fired up TigerGaming for some $5 NL play. The next two and a half hours were spent either being card dead or getting nothing for my quality hands.

For example, I pick up AA in the SB. At a table with flop percentages in the low to mid 70s, I was pretty damn happy. I pictured re-raising then getting all my money in pre-flop and coming away rich! Instead, everyone folds to me. Not being one to limp with rockets, I decide to min raise another 10 cents. Getting 3 to 1 odds, the big blind decides to fold...dirty bugger...

Twenty minutes later, I pick up 99 on the button and raise it to 4xBB. Only one guy stays in the pot. Flop comes 9 Q Q - sweet! The only problem is that my opponent is taking a long time to think. A little too long. I turn to John, who had also come over to watch the Sens game on the big screen, and tell him that my opponent will probably just fold rather than simply check. Five seconds later, my opponent does just that. Seriously, not only is folding for no reason a bad play, it's just annoying. I guess the guy was too afraid of catching something on the turn or the river that might have forced him to invest some money into the pot. I don't think he had any idea how far behind he was, although I blame his play on inexperience/crappiness as opposed to a killer intuition.

Other than those two hands, I picked up a number of AJ, AQ and a few AK hands. I missed the flop on half of them and did alright with the others.

The big mistake of the night came when I picked up A9s in the SB. Eight people in the pot. Flop comes 9 4 2. I bet out half the pot, the chip leader to my right calls, the guy to his right pushes all in for his last 0.90. Everyone folds to me and I call for another 10 cents as does the chip leader. Turn is a blank and I check. The chip leader bets $2 into the $4 something pot. At this point, I have only top pair with a measly 5 outs to improve. The correct play at this point is to fold. So I push with my last $3.50 and patting myself on the back for a brilliant play.

In reality, I knew I was behind and I don't know why I pushed. It's that gambler's spirit, it's the hoping against hope that your opponent is bluffing. When the chip leader shows pocket twos for the flopped set, I can only blame myself. I lose my buy-in and leave the table in shame. I broke my one cardinal rule of poker: Never call an all-in bet when all you can beat is a bluff. This could be someone else's saying, although I think that the concept is so straight-forward that it probably goes unspoken within the poker community.

Even though I lost one buy-in, I was doing well at another table and ended up 32 cents for the night. I know, don't spend it all in one place. At least I learned (for a third time) the value of not calling a large bet or pushing all-in with only top pair. Let's hope it sticks this time.

Afterwards, I played a $5 SNG at Intertops at promptly dropped out in 6th spot. Ooof, not a good night. Not a bad night either, but not as good as I'd hoped. I think the Sens sucked up all my luck by creaming the Wild.

That's all for now. Not that interesting a read - I apologize. I may post something later today discussing my current NL ring game strategy. It probably only works at the micro limit tables and I'm positive that it doesn't maximize winnings, but it should help some of the newer players make some easy money.

Keep reading "A little something for everyone"

The stages of a poker blogger (Part I)

I'm sure other people have already documented the growth of a poker blogger, both in his/her writing and in his/her poker game. I may have even read this somewhere else and am now in the process of plagiarizing someone else's hard work. Then again, I'm sure I'll introduce enough mistakes and falsehoods to make this my "own".

I've only been blogging (my wife's right - the word blog is more gay than the act of blogging itself) for a few months or so. Does this make me an expert on the phases that each blogger goes through? Nope. But I can give my opinion about the stages that I've encountered so far - and that, my friends, is what blogging is all about. Inaccurate statements of complete unimportance, bad advice meant to garner more money from even-weaker opponents, self-important dialogues, misplaced diatribes and masturbatory dreams of making it "big" - ain't blogs grand?

I've read many blogs, including my own, from start to finish and have come up with the following observations. Agree, disagree, call me a prick, whatever - but I'm guessing that if you've come this far, you're gonna keep reading.

Stage 1: I'm cool...please like me!
This is the stage where a poker blogger will outline their poker careers so far. Most bloggers at this point have had very little success in the world of poker, winning a few bucks here and there but still nowhere near playing poker professionally. This is the stage where the blogger doesn't have a voice of his/her/it's own. Most entries will seem eerily similar to the style of other bloggers out there.

Many will fall back on pimping other sites, using the word "pimping" to sound cool, and discussing various drinking stories in order to get a link from Al. I've seen it a million times (or at least, like, five times) and I'm sure this trend will continue.

Stage 2: Take a look at these!
Now that the site contains anywhere from 1 to 6000 links to various poker blogs, the writer/poker player must come up with some content. What do people want to read about? Heated discussions on why AKs sucks? No. Discussions of various poker rooms and their pros/cons? No. Poker theory and book reviews? No.

Every new blogger knows what people want: hand histories. Of course, how simple. Just play for a few hours everyday then post the hand histories containing all the exciting moments that make up poker. Of course people want to see the hand where you caught quads! And that hand where the guy hit his 3 outer on the river? That's quality shit right there.

I'd make some comment about bad beat stories here; however, I like bad beat stories. And, for the most part, new poker bloggers have yet to see any juicy bad beats at this point in their poker "careers".

Most experts define a bad beat as any time runner-runner is caught to overtake a previously winning hand. My definition is similar, but to be considered a real bad beat, two further criteria must exist:

1. The bad beat should really cost the poker player a chunk of money that he or she really needed or it should cost the player some really good prize money. That will be sure to put the player on uber-tilt. And of course, uber-tilt is that delightful little phase of self-doubt where a player is to afraid to play AK strongly pre-flop for fear of chasing with a drawing hand.
2. A good bad beat should induce the gag reflex and stand a good chance of creating an unfortunate case of vomiting. This happened to my brother once when he took his grocery money for the month and put it all on red. When the wheel came up black, his dinner came up on the drive home.

Stage 3: I need some good stories to tell!
Now that the blog is up and running and getting two or three hits a day from loved ones and friends, it's now time to start taking silly chances in order to come up with some good stories. Here, the blogger is more concerned about entertaining his or her non-existent readers than he or she is about bankroll size and winning.

This stage usually involves playing well above one's bankroll in the hopes of hitting it big or losing it all. In my case, I took my shot at the $1/$2 limit games at Interpoker. I said I'd keep at it until I lost $150...which I did...quickly...felt like vomiting...didn't...

For others with bigger cojones, this is the stage of $200 SNGs, $100 NL ring games, and WPT satellite tournaments. What these players fail to see is that they have become the calling stations or the fishy players that other bloggers refer to mockingly in their own posts.

These high-stakes stories usually end the same way - with the inevitable "Oops! I tried..." blog entry.

Stage 4: I need to make money!
By this point in time, the blog is generating a steady stream of 5 to 10 hits a day. Believe it or not, a lot of people love to a good train wreck. However, the poker blogger should not fooled: most visitors have ended up at the site by accident and others through a googled "problem gambling" search result.

It is at this point in time where the author sees the need for affiliate codes and other forms of click-through promotion. And so the previously uninteresting and illegible site now becomes an uninteresting and illegible site that loads extremely slowly. And for all the seizure-inducing blinking from all the affiliate links, one click-through is garnered for a total profit of 2 cents.

Stage 5: I need to get better!
Ahhh...here's the stage where some real studying and working on one's game promises better poker profit and better blog entries. I mean, at 2 cents per click-through, the blog will need at least 1000 click-throughs a day in order to cover the gambling losses.

This stage is accompanied by the common refrain of "I need to get back to the basics", re-reading Ed Miller, or finishing Harrington on Hold'em for real this time.

And so books are read, PokerTracker is purchased, hand histories are analyzed. Suddenly, the blogger gets it!

Stage 6: I need a break!
With further study comes the realization that many players out there don't know what they're doing. The blogger doesn't know why they keep winning - they're just getting lucky, picking up big hands and hitting the river constantly. However, upon further analysis, it will later be found that many hands were misplayed (i.e. slow-played), value bets were missed, an overabundance of crying calls were made, and opponents were not respected enough to be credited with even the most marginal iota of intelligence.

However, it is not the constant small losses that force the dreaded "hiatus": it is the vomit-inducing bad beat. It is the loss of a substantial portion of the blogger's bankroll on one hand. It is going all in for $100 with AA and getting called by pocket 5s and losing it all on the river. It is the runner-runner flush draw where the opponent holds only a 32s (which is, by the way, the hand which loses the most money online according to something I read a while ago).

I have just come back from my own hiatus. For me, my moment of horror came when my AK lost to another player's A4. I mean, it happens, right? However, at the time, I went into uber-tilt. I could not play properly online or otherwise. I couldn't stand the thought of poker. I didn't want to play it and I could not see why I liked the stupid game in the first place. Why? I finally realized that luck does play a role in poker and, unfortunately for me, short term can still be pretty f*cking long.

My hiatus was a short, albeit extremely bumpy, road to get back on track. As I continue to explore my own relationship with poker and blogging (the Liberace of all Internet endeavours), I will continue documenting my growth. If I do hit it "big", it's going to be a good ride. Although there is a pretty good chance of me thrashing about in the hiatus zone for a while depending on how often those stupid f*ckers out there keep hitting their sets on the river. Presto my ass! I'll show you presto, you little prick...

For all you new bloggers out there, take pride in the fact that there are many out there as sick, as boring, as crazy, as poor, as ecstatic, and as miserable as you. Savour the bad beats! We've all been there (most far longer than me but few more completely).

When things are going bad, learn.

When things are going well, be humble.

When things are going nowhere, take a break.

And if the cards just stop falling right, get as many affiliate links as you can and pimp other bloggers like a crazy mofo!

Keep reading "The stages of a poker blogger (Part I)"

In a hurry...

I can't write too much today - lots of work to do. But here's a really quick recap of my weekend. I hope to write more later today when I get the chance, but this will have to do until then.

Friday January 13
I played three $6 SNGs at Intertops, placing 1st, 2nd and 4th. I got a little lucky to win 1st place, a little unlucky to place 4th, and I deserved the 2nd place finish although I could've done without running into pocket aces with my pocket eights with only 3 left.

I played some $5 NL at TigerGaming and lost two buy-ins very quickly. Both buy-ins were lost the same way. I had a big pair (QQ and JJ) and raised big pre-flop. Three or four callers and the flop comes down low garbage rainbow. I bet the pot, guy raises all-in, and I call being pot committed. Opponent shows me the nut straight and I lose my buy-in. It's a little frustrating to have that happen almost simultaneously on two tables, but that's poker.

Saturday January 14
Played two hours of limit poker at Interpoker and dropped $32. My losses can be attributed to three hands where I got rivered after betting like mad the whole way. One fish caught runner-runner to hit his flush, another fish caught runner-runner to hit trip 4s, and the last fish caught a 5 on the river to give him the set. All I can say is Ouch! Oh, and "You stupid shitbird! Mother f*cker! Damn, crap, shit ass!!".

Anyway, I recouped about $15 playing some NL at Tiger afterwards, so the day was not a complete wash.

Sunday January 15
Played another hour or so of limit at Interpoker and made back $11. It would've been more had I not run into KK twice - once with my JJ and another time with my TT. Both times, my opponent did not raise or re-raise either pre-flop or anywhere throughout the hand. This made it very easy for me to push my money into their stacks for them. I hate it when the fish don't raise! I also lost a big pot when a fish hit a ten on the river to beat my pocket nines. He limped in with T7o, called my raise and called my bets all the way to the river.

I also played an SNG at PokerStars (affiliate code coming soon I hope!). I got lucky in the first part of the SNG when it doesn't count and went card dead once it was down to four players. I eventually went out in third when I foolishly went all in with the board showing K J J and I was a holding a king. When will I learn that my opponents always have trips?

Finally, I finished off the weekend with a couple hours of NL at TigerGaming. Although I made $15, I was a little pissed off when my cowboys ran into aces yet again! Seriously, how many times can this happen? It happened three times last week! Actually, all told, I think I've had my pocket pairs run into an overpair 10 - 15 times in the last 8 days. This is not so bad in an SNG but is horrible in a cash game. KK vs AA! QQ vs KK! JJ vs KK! JJ vs QQ! JJ vs AA! The list goes on...

On a positive note, I've now won four hands in a row where I've had my opponent dominated! Finally, all is right with the world!

So let me quickly recap my 100 SNG challenge so far:
Played: 69
$$ Won: $41
ITM %: 45%
ROI %: 11%

I kinda cheated and played an extra $3 SNG at TigerGaming, but I was drunk and had just suffered the two horrendous overpair vs. flopped straight hands.

Ok...back to work...

Keep reading "In a hurry..."

Oops - screwed it up!

You may have noticed that my blog started acting funny over the past 10 or 15 minutes. I was trying to fix up the "More..." links on the site to use javascript to display the full posts instead of using links to full pages.

Anyway, this will be ongoing for a little bit, but there should be little disruption from this point on. Probably should have created a test site before making major template changes...

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Fuck it!!! I'm not gonna bother doing anything fancy with this damned site ever! I don't pay myself enough to worry about it!

Enjoy the same old site - probably crappier in some ways due to some stupid bug that I've left in the template somewhere!

Anyway, weekend time! Peace.

Keep reading "Oops - screwed it up!"

Hockey Mirrors Poker Mirrors Life...

If you've been around the poker scene for a while, you've undoubtedly heard poker players mention that "Poker mirrors life". Everything that you encounter at the tables - the people, the ups, the downs, the joy of raking a monster pot, the agony of losing your buy-in - reflects situations and life in the real world. I've really found that poker has changed the way I look at things in my everyday life.

I remember going for a job interview last August. I'd been playing a lot of poker in the months leading up to this interview and was on a pretty good winning streak. So when I sat down in the window-less room, I was ready for anything.

I met with two people: the recruiting agent and the client. I remember watching the client come in and sit down. As he started speaking and asking me questions, my mind began to alter the scene in front of me. We weren't sitting at a brightly lit industrial table talking W3C Compliance and Internet Publishing Standards; instead, we were staring each other down across the felt. Our stacks were even but I was steadily gaining ground. The client fired shot after shot and it was all the agent could do to get out of the way.

Raise? I re-raise.

Small river bet? I fold.

All-in? Call.

Back and forth we went until I finally peeked down and saw the cowboys looking back. Client pushes in with the last of his chips and it's over. We shake hands and I leave knowing that I'd totally outplayed the client and the job would be mine.

I took some crazy chances during the interview and played it really aggressively. Anyone out there who's interviewed a lot knows the feeling that comes with dominating the interview process and it feels good. I didn't really want the job since I was looking to go out on my own as a consultant: this probably gave me the cojones to play it as hard as I did.

All this to say that poker is life and life is poker - you do well at one and the other will follow. But last night, as I played my usual limit game at Interpoker, I noticed the Sens game mirroring my game.

The Sens played somewhat sloppy at times but really lost the game on two or three lucky breaks for the Sharks. The Sharks scored on a breakaway goal and a 2 on 1. It didn't matter how well the Sens played for the rest of the evening: these two goals were all the Sharks needed to break the mighty Ottawa Senators.

The same thing happened in my limit game. I was playing pretty well. I may have been overly aggressive at times, but I was pushing my edge as much as I could when ahead. A few times, I made mistakes: when the neutral-passive player re-raised me on the turn with the board showing 6 K Q J, I should have laid down my TPTK. In fact, had pot odds not dictated a call on his initial turn bet, I should have folded. Instead, I raised his original bet and capped his re-raise. Ignoring that one hand and a couple other small mistakes that cost me a total of one or two big bets, my results did not reflect the quality of my play.

I lost 4 big hands and split another big pot when the river card was a queen. For three of the big hands that I lost, my opponents hit their 3-,4-, or 5-outters on the river. I ran into two straights and trip 8s and all three cost me at least $6.

Would I cold-call a pre-flop raise with a Q8o? Nope. Would I cold-call a pre-flop raise with a K9o or a JTo? Not a chance. Although the loose play of my opponents cost me, it was that same loose play that allowed me to finish down only 50 cents by the end of my session. Had the tables not broken up, I would've kept playing and stood a good chance of making my money back.

I've noticed that the limit play at Interpoker tends to feature a number of regulars, many of whom are fish. As the fish lose all their money over the course of a week or two, the sharks move on and a new set of fishy and sharky regulars take over the 0.50/1.00 tables. I'll keep playing these games until I clear my October bonus then take a shot at the $1/$2 tables again. I refuse to accept the fact that the $1/$2 games are out of my league. It's time that I take a shot at the gold (or bronze) again.

I also played some more $5 NL at TigerGaming. My results turned out as mediocre as ever. I was really missing a lot of flops, getting crappy cards, and not getting paid off on a lot of great hands once I became the table leader. I was pretty upset when I put a guy all-in with my JJ and having him show me AA. What makes this more upsetting is the fact that, just 15 minutes prior, I'd run into KK with my QQ. The funniest thing is how people describe these types of hands in the chat: Tiger hands. You will never meet a more cynical bunch of conspiracy-theorists than the $5 NL crowd at Tiger. Damn, I love this poker thing!

On a brighter note, I picked up enough monsters to put me up for the night and I'm happy! There's nothing better than hitting the nut-flush on the turn, checking from the SB, and having the BB go all-in and the CO re-raise! I knocked two guys out at once on that hand.

Anyway, I feel as if this post has really been a steaming pile of shit. The ideas worked in my head but didn't translate to the page, I guess. Oh well, you've gotten this far so you might as well finish, right?

Tonight...my wife and I are going out for dinner with friends. Then it's back home for some well deserved rest (is there any other kind?). I may have a few drinks and play some poker - we'll see. I'm going to try and play some more SNGs this weekend: I'm 64% done and I've got some lucky cards owing me. I really need to improve my ROI. Since January 1st, SNGs have cost me $35 due to some bad luck and weak-tight play. I'm hoping to turn it around tonight and this weekend.

One last thing...Last night, MrVercetti and another friend, I'll call him John, were supposed to come over. Well, John got a couple tickets to the Sens game, so he and MrVercetti did that instead. You'd think my friends would be more keen on coming over and watching me play poker in my boxer shorts?! Actually, my wife got me a pair of poker-themed pajama bottoms and a WSOP t-shirt. I'll normally wear those when playing online, along with my snazzy new Interpoker baseball cap. But if it'll put you on tilt, you can picture me playing naked save for a pair of sweaty boxer shorts and some half-eaten rice crackers caught up in my stomach hair...damn, I think that image just put me on tilt.

Back to my point...my wife felt bad that no one was coming over to watch the game so she brought out one of my birthday presents early - the latest edition of Bluff Magazine. My wife's cool...

Have a great weekend everyone! And don't forget to sign-up at Interpoker or TigerGaming. I can't guarantee that you'll make a fortune playing there, but seriously - you'll make a fortune playing there!

Ok, now get outta here you lazy buggers!

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I'm a sucker for new bloggers starting out in the cold, hard world that is Internet poker. Although aware of poker for a while, his wife only let him start playing online in December. And as is usually the case, he's already winning a hell of a lot more than me.

So check out The Silent Four when you get a chance. I've only read the first entry (and commented on it thinking that it was the only entry...embarrassing...) but so far so good.

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Just found another blogger that I'm gonna read. He's just starting out as well and has already won his first $10 SNG at PokerStars. That's right, another protégé! At least he agreed with me on some comments I made on another site, so he gets pimped! See how easy it is to impress me?

Anyway, his name is iamhoff and you can read all about his exploits over at The Randomness of Hoff.

Keep reading "Hockey Mirrors Poker Mirrors Life..."

Took the night off

Well, I didn't play any poker last night. Crazy, but true. I spent the night having dinner with my wife and my mom. Afterwards, my wife and I returned home, watched the latest episode of Supernatural, then went to bed. It may sound boring, but it was actually pretty relaxing. Tonight, on the other hand, is a different story...

My plans for tonight are to play some SNGs again and some NL if I get the chance. MrVercetti is popping over to watch the Sens game and I can easily play poker and watch hockey at the same time.

I wish I had something more to say. I did notice that someone found my site by searching for "Matt Maroon" sucks: poor Matt, never gets the respect he deserves. He seems pretty good to me - that's why I ordered his book yesterday. So if Matt Maroon does indeed suck as presumed by fishy google surfers, I guess I'm gonna be sucking all the way to the bank! Does that even make any sense in the English language?

While waiting for my new books to arrive in the mail, I've decided to sit down and read Sklansky's Hold'em Poker for Advanced Players (aka HPFAP). I'm going to work on memorizing the hand groupings and the key rules for using them. I think that my VP$IP of 15% seems a little tight. Combined with my PFR% of 9%, I think I'm missing out on some extra bets each time I sit down to play limit (or NL) hold'em.

The only complaint that I have about the book is that very little of it applies to the games I play. Sklansky discusses necessary strategies and patterns of thinking to use against good players. You know - what does he think that I think that he has? Beginning players think of one thing only - "What cards do I have?". When faced with bets, they look at their cards and decide whether they are ahead or not. This results in the fishy behaviour of checking a lot and only betting when holding top pair or better. Come to think of it, this is very much like what I do interspersed between random acts of unadulterated aggression.

Regardless, I'm told Sklansky is The Man when it comes to poker theory. People may poke fun or criticize his writing simply because he's not as successful as some of the big name players. Still, I was always taught that those who can't - teach. And there are few better teachers than Dave "The Don" Sklansky.

Have I wasted enough of your time? You betcha! Get the hell outta here and go play some poker!

Keep reading "Took the night off"

Quick fixes are the best fixes!

Now that my love of "all-things-poker" is back, I'm going to make a concerted effort to improve my game. There are some definite leaks in my game (how many players have said this exact same thing this year?) and some things that I can do to improve. So, how do you fix leaks in your game? Practice is good. Talking about poker with friends is ok. Blogging about poker is pathetic. But I want the quick fix. I know - I'll buy some books!

For the two weeks, I've responded to my wife's pleas of "What do you want for your birthday?" with my standard "I don't know. Nothing. I've got everything I need". On an almost daily basis, this same question comes up and I keep coming up with nothing. And then, this afternoon, I order three books from Amazon.ca , much to my wife's disbelief and frustration. It must be really annoying to be married to me...

Anyways, without further ado, here's what I'm going to work on:

NL Ring Games
I've been interested in taming this beast for a while and I think that, thanks to TigerGaming's ridiculously cheap games and soft competition, now is the time to make my move.

As I posted earlier, I will try to win $100 at Tiger's $5 NL games prior to moving up to Interpoker's $25 NL games. To aid in my quest, I purchased three books that should all put me on course for some pretty sweet mediocre results:

Each of these books should contribute greatly to my successes.

Tom McEvoy I don't know much about other than he's a good poker writer and professional poker player (sorry Tom!). T.J. Cloutier is real pro and seems to suffer as many bad beats as I do. If I'm ever going to succeed, I'll need to seek out his wisdom. He's a big guy and I've got to learn how he manages to restrain himself from pummeling everyone in site when his AK loses to a donkey's A5. Seriously, this book's supposed to be pretty good.

Bob Ciaffone's book is recommended by the 2+2 forum as being one of the top NL ring game books out there. Who am I to argue? At only $20 CDN (that's probably $5 US), this book should pay for itself pretty quickly. I just hope it isn't as dry as his middle limit hold'em book.

Finally, Matt Maroon is one of the up and coming Internet pros and has been crushing the middle limit poker scene for a couple years now, I think. Although his book does have some mistakes when it comes to the pictures and poker hands, I still think it's a great investment. For only $12, how can you go wrong? I already know the difference between a straight, two pair and a full house, so any little editing errors won't bother me. I'm especially interested in the short-handed section of his book.

By the way, when I say that these books will bring me some mediocre results, I am not critiquing the expertise of these writers. I am simply trying to keep my hopes low until proven otherwise. If any one, or all, of these books produce some sort of crazy explosion in my game, I'll send 'em all something nice (assuming I can find out where they live...probably not...). And if they don't work, I'll send 'em all the bill.

Ok, it's quitting time - get out here and go play some poker!

Keep reading "Quick fixes are the best fixes!"

Poker is fun, variance sucks, affiliates rule!

I'll keep it short today (or shorter than I usually do). I played a few hours of $5 NL at TigerGaming last night, hoping to experience the same results as my previous two sessions. Well, I have good news and bad news...

The good news is that I was up by the end of the night. Although I spent about $16 in buy-ins, I came out ahead by about $6. I started out well, picking up some good pots to double up here and there and was generally doing alright. The tables kept breaking up - this seems to happen constantly in the NL games - but I did my best to stay in the game no matter where I played.

However, after the first hour, I went card dead for the most part. I picked up KK and AA once each but got no action from them. Here's a question: how do the other guys know to fold to my 3xBB raise when I'm holding aces but will readily call when I'm holding AJ and they're holding 73o? Invariably, the flop comes down T 7 3 most times and I fold to an all-in flop bet.

Anyway, the thing that really prevented me from leaping ahead money-wise was the crazy calls that people made when I'd try to bully them as the big stack. I lost $4.80 on a hand when a guy decided to call my all-in bet on the flop. I'd raised to 3xBB with QJs in the CO and he was in the BB and called. Flop comes K T x. He bets 0.40 into the 0.80 pot. I decide to put him all in for his last $4.50. Remember that I'd raised pre-flop...this is probably why it took him so long. Well, he eventually calls and shows a K8o. Weak...yes, top pair is a good hand. And no, there is no way in hell that I would call an all-in with top pair, shitty kicker, when the big stack raises pre-flop then pushes on the flop. I missed the straight and the backdoor flush draw and the extra outs that I picked up on the turn when a J fell.

So that's how it was most of the evening. Win some small pots, fold a heck of a lot, win a big pot, give it back to a player who's lost his patience, repeat.

My new goal, in addition to the 100 SNG Challenge, is to clear $100 at Tiger's $5 NL ring games. If I can do that, I'll move up to Interpoker's $25 NL games and see how well I do. With the rakeback and bonuses at Interpoker, I think it'd be a good move for me.

Lastly, so that we end off on a good note, I'll let you know that I won $7 on one of my last hands of the evening. This one actually occurred a few hands before the QJ vs K8 fiasco. I had 22 UTG and I decide to limp. In limit poker, this is a big no-no for me but I'm definitely getting pot odds in these loose NL games (because most pots are unraised 8 callers) and implied odds if I hit the flop. Flop comes down 2 4 8. Sweet! SB bets 0.50 into the 0.60 pot, BB raises to 0.75, and I smooth call hoping for overcalls. Although there are two flush cards on the table, the SB and BB would most likely call had I raised and I was assuming that one or both had flush draws. Everyone folds to the SB who pushes all in for his last $3 or so, BB pushes for his last $3.50, and I insta-call.

Well, the BB shows AJs for the nut flush draw. The SB shows...K8o for top pair (little did I know that K8 would gets its revenge a few hands later). Turn is an 8 of diamonds, giving me the boat. The river is the case 2 and I have quads! Actually, at first I got scared that I was going to lose with a my boat to the SB's eights full of twos. Silly me...quad 2s beat everything!

Now, had the river been an 8, I would've had a great bad beat story. As it is, I guess we'll all have to savour my victory. Strangely enough, I'd picked up JJ on the other table I was playing at the same time and took down a small-ish pot of $1.65 at that table. So, in the space of 30 seconds, I was up for the night and happy.

Before I go, you'll notice I've placed some ads for Interpoker and TigerGaming in my sidebar. These are both places that I enjoy frequenting - if you read my blog somewhat regularly, you'll know that Interpoker is my current "home" site. If you're feeling bold and want to start playing at either of these sites, feel free to click my links and sign-up. Both sites have great deposit bonuses and Interpoker has the best monthly reload bonus around.

Ok, I've whored myself enough. See you at the tables...

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Geez...And I thought that I set my sights pretty high. Guess not...

Keep reading "Poker is fun, variance sucks, affiliates rule!"

Eye of the Tiger

(The RSS feed for the following post may be screwed up...don't know why...)

Well, I ended up foregoing Playstation for poker again last night. I guess I'm back in the groove and rediscovering why I started playing poker in the first place. And after having my ass kicked for a bit over the past week, I finally posted a winning night - enough to put me in the black for 2006.

I started the night by playing some 0.50/1 FL at Interpoker, my poker room of choice. I got some big hands early that never really materialized into much - hitting the nut flush on the flop doesn't mean anything heads up when the other guy is a rock.

I feel my biggest downfall last night was making loose calls on the river. Again, I don't like folding for one bet on the river when the pot is large or when I'm heads-up and played the turn weakly. I'll fold if I have nothing, but I'll sometimes call if I have a mediocre hand but smell weakness.

One other thing that can hurt your BB/100 is missing the flop after raising PF. I picked up AK once, AQ three times, and AJ three times. All of the hands totally missed the flops and I was forced to fold...actually, the AJ hand ran into an AQ which cost me a little bit. Basically, the flop came Q high and I decided to bet when my two opponents checked to me. SB calls and UTG folds. Turn is a J. At this point, I think I'm ahead since SB has not shown any strength at all. When the SB checks the turn, I bet again and he calls. On the river, he bet out and I called. I hate it when people don't bet or raise with top pair...frustrating.

After just over an hour of limit play, I was only down 43 cents. Not too bad considering the $15 or so that I lost in missed flops, loose calls, and dominated hands. In that time, I earned another $4.50 of my bonus, so that puts me up at the end of the day if and when I finish clearing the $90 deposit bonus.

It was only 8 pm when I finished at Interpoker, so I decided to hop over to TigerGaming for some NL play. I decided to open two tables and sat down. All in all, it was pretty uneventful and I was up about $6 until about 8:55.

I was going to stop at 9 o'clock so that my wife and I could watch a movie and was going to leave with my money when I picked up an AJ in early position. I decided to min-raise and got 6 callers. At this point, I had $6.30 (buy-in is $5 at these tables) and the chip leader sitting with $12.75 was in the pot.

The flop comes down J K J and I check the flop even though I'm excited as hell at the proposition of finally getting back at all those players out there hitting big hands against me. Everyone checks to the guy sitting to the chip leader's right - he bets 0.25 into the $1.20 pot. Chip leader raises to $1 and I decide that, if he does indeed have a hand, I should find out now. I raise it to $2 and only the chip leader calls.

The turn is the case Jack and I'm trying to figure out how to get all my money in. I decide that by betting a measly 0.50 into the pot, I'll at least keep the chip leader in it but may, in fact, cause him to think I'm weak. Very few people will expect an opponent to be holding the case Jack in this spot. My ruse works and the chip leader pushes his last $10 or so into the pot. I call immediately, leaving the chip leader shaking his head when he sees the bad news and realizes that I'm not holding a King or a pocket pair.

That hand allowed me to double up, putting me up just over $12 for 40 minutes of play. I know that variance will eventually show its ugly head, but these games are definitely +EV for me. I'm going to milk these $5 NL games as much as I can until I make the move to the $25 NL tables at Interpoker.

So it was a good night for me. My wife and I watched The Haunted Mansion afterwards. Movie is ok but not great. It's strange to see Jennifer Tilly acting now that she's become hot sh*t in the poker world. Anyway, if you're going to watch a Disney movie starring Eddie Murphy, The Nutty Professor is probably a better bet (bathroom humour is always good for a laugh).

All that and I lost 2 lbs. - sweet!

Ok, I've got a meeting at 10 so I'm outta here. Don't forget to check out the blogs listed to the right - I do and I'm living the dream. You could be too.

Keep reading "Eye of the Tiger"

Thank you - please come again!

First, a special thanks to Felicia for stopping by. I'll admit, I have yet to get to Felicia's blog simply because I know that she's a solid 7-card stud player and 7-card stud scares me: I have enough trouble remembering two cards. Still, if you're interested in reading a poker blog written by someone who really knows her stuff, then you'll find very few better than Felicia Lee's blog. And if you're interested in reading mindless drivel then get ready cuz here it comes!

So, I haven't mentioned any of the keyword searches that have delivered people to my doorstep lately. Since I've got some time right now, I thought I'd go ahead and do that. Don't you feel lucky? It won't be that bad - in fact, you may be downright surprised...

aim robot screen name mr knowitall
Hmmm...Man, I wish I could come up with some semblance of an answer to your query. I'm guessing this person is looking to determine whether Mr. Know-it-all is a bot or a human player. Most likely, I'm guessing you got severely out played or called down by second pair when you made a desperation bluff on the river and lost a big pot. Mr. Know-it-all may be a bot, but then again, you may be a donk. And unfortunately, your quest is not finished because I am not mr knowitall, I am Klopzi...whatever that means...

pokerace hud registration code for free
pokerace hud registration key generator
In response to the many, many, many (3) people coming here looking for a PokerAce HUD registration codes, cracks and hacks, I have one thing to say: pay the $25 already. Sure, it used to be free. But it's worth $25. Hell, if you use it to multi-table $3/$6 at Party, it's worth a hell of a lot more than that. This is great software (infinitely better than GameTime+ in my opinion) - you won't regret picking it up. I'll even put up a link at the side for you to follow to buy it - how much easier could it be than that?

And assuming that you can make $5/hour playing poker, you'll spend far longer than 5 hours just trying to find a code that only works for a couple days before the developers block that registration code (although I'm sure duplicate codes are rejected out of hand). Avast me mateys! You're piratey ways will never find that buried treasure.

phil hellmuth blow up videos
If I ever find out that a video is being sold containing a steady stream of Phil Hellmuth "blow-ups", I will let you know where you can get it. If I ever find anything online, I'll let you know. I just thank God that the search wasn't for "phil hellmuth blow up doll" - I think Id have to give up watching poker for fear of seeing Phil Hellmuth. And the thoughts of a Klopzi blow-up doll existing (in the case that I win 9 WSOP bracelets) is too disturbing to contemplate.

5 cents 10 cents fixed limit poker
(Due to firewall limitations, I can't verify any of the following information, but I'll do my best)

If you're looking for some 5c/10c action, here are some places to look:

1. TigerGaming: This is where it all started for me. I played countless hours of limit poker at the 10c/20c tables trying to build up my bankroll while desperately trying not to vomit from the nervous shakes. Limit was a scary beast for me in the beginning (and still is), but you're not going to find cheaper lessons than at TigerGaming. Just make sure you don't confuse the 10c/20c with 5c/10c $5 buy-in NL (no-limit) ring games. The players may not be good but the two or three above-average players at the table will eat you alive.
2. UltimateBet: UltimateBet has the smallest fixed-limit ring games on the internet at 1c/2c. I'm sure they have 10c/20c too...not sure though - still, they're worth checking out. I joined UltimateBet because of the 1c/2c tables (which I never played) and because I really like Phil Hellmuth (not blow-up doll like, wise-ass).
3. Pacific Poker: Correct me if I'm wrong, but Pacific Poker has some 10c/20c tables too. Pacific Poker has some of the loosest games on the internet (according to some of the sites out there). Just remember that there is such a thing as too loose and it's really frustrating to constantly have your top pair lose to sixes over twos.

slow playing rockets poker
slow playing rockets explained poker terms
Slow-playing AA pre-flop is a recipe for disaster unless you really know what you're doing. And most players who know what they're doing raise it up pre-flop with AA. I've sucked out on people slow-playing rockets by hitting two pair on the flop with my T4o from the BB. I had a guy suck out on me the other night because I let him in for cheap in the BB. Here's an idea: instead of limping with AA pre-flop, just raise with other quality hands as well in an effort to disguise your good hands from your great hands.

As for slow-playing rockets after the flop, use the texture of the board and your read on the table to determine how things should play out. I won't elaborate because poker is a game of situations, blah blah blah. Pick up any poker book and you'll see this same stuff dealt with far better than me. You ask me, texture of the board is "felty" and my read on my opponents is spotty at this point in time. If you're ever playing against me, just ask me if you should push with your Aces and I'll let you know, depending on which cards I'm holding at the time...

By the way, all that "you may be surprised" nonsense was a ruse to make you read on. As the donkey said to me when he extracted one big bet from me on the river after slow-playing the nuts on 3rd and 4th street - "Gotcha!".
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That's it for now. I may play poker tonight or PS2 - I'll have to see what suits my mood. Winning money is good, losing money is bad, shooting zombiesin the face is always a winning proposition, as is rollingup giant balls of people, cows, and freaky Japanese snack food.

And rather than playing the night away, my wife and I are probably going to watch a couple movies saved on the PVR (or DVR or TiVO...same thing) tonight as well. Tonight is going to be fun...can't wait...leaving soon!

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Does my writing come across like it's being written by a 10-year old Japanese schoolgirl? Do I put too many exclamation points in my writing?!!!!! And do I say "yay!" far too many times for a 30 year old male? I should probably stop watching Will & Grace and Sailor Moon...y'know, just in case...

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By the way, I'm kidding...I'll never stop watching Will & Grace and Sailor Moon.

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That was also a joke...but Will & Grace can be funny. As for Sailor Moon, it's so 1994...that's right, it's Yu-Gi-Oh! time bitches!

Keep reading "Thank you - please come again!"

Forsaken

Don't you love it when a post starts off with a title clearly pointing out that bad times have been had by all? There are two things I like reading about in poker blogs: great successes and huge failures. I like hearing the bad beats: they make me feel that I've been blessed to only catch bad beats every 3rd hand instead of every 2nd hand like many bloggers out there. And I like hearing about people playing in their first every $200 SNG and taking home $22K for their efforts. Still, this blog is about me and my play, and alas, I did not win $22K this weekend which means...

First, in regards to my year to date, you can clearly see in the sidebar that things are rather mediocre. I guess I should've named this blog Klopzi's Winning Poker or Klopzi's Rich-As-Daddy-Warbucks Poker - who knows, I might have run hotter than I have been of late. As for gaining two pounds last week, I blame that on leftover Christmas squares, lingering holiday diseases, Delissio pizzas and chocolate-covered cherries

Instead, let me recap my 100 SNGs in 100 days challenge.
SNGs Played: 64
ITM %: 42% (A+)
ROI %: 3.6% (B-)
$ Won: $12.60 (B-)
1st: 5 (C)
2nd: 12 (A+)
3rd: 10 (A)
Bubble: 14 (wtf?!)

What can I say about my SNG play of late? It's been a strange mix of being card dead and being extremely unlucky - I wonder how many bloggers have erroneously felt this way?. Now, I know that when you're only 70% to win a hand, you're not guaranteed to win. Unfortunately, since my last win at PokerStars earlier this year, I have yet to win a single all-in when I am the favourite in the hand. Strange but true. I've sucked out a few times when up against the ropes and pushing all in for my last T400 with ATs (only to get called by big stack holding AQs). But when it comes to knocking out Shit-Stack McGee holding AJ against my QQ, I'm S.O.L.

I did pick up a second and a third place finish this weekend, but I played 6 SNGs. I bubbled in three of the SNGs - each time being forced to go all-in after being crippled by losing a 70/30 hand. I'm see that Felicia says that no one wants to hear about bad beats, although according to her lists of "don'ts" for poker blogs, I'm only a family picture or two from being complete crap. However Felicia doesn't know who I am (nor do most bloggers out there), so I think I'm safe.

So, what did I do when I started running poorly in the SNGs? Why - I started playing some NL ring games at TigerGaming. I've started playing the $5 NL ring games at Tiger - I'm always extremely cautious when starting something new. Although I'd played the $10 NL at Pacific Poker, I'd heard that the $5 games at Tiger could be pretty soft.

Well, I can attest that the games are not too bad. The biggest problems I've had with the games represent a strange side-effect of what makes the games easy to beat.

When you have 8 of 10 players limping to see a flop, it's not that hard to deduce that quality hands are not being played by most. However, this also renders any value you might get from top pair to zero - on any given flop, someone has at least two pair. I learned this the hard way yesterday when I lost my first buy-in when I raised it to 10xBB with an AKs - I really wanted to limit the field and any raise < $1 was not being respected. I got one caller. When the flop came A 6 2 rainbow, I bet out $1 and my opponent immediately pushed all-in. In his Little Green Book, Phil Gordon praises the virtues of playing against players who overvalue top pair - I guess I was not paying attention to that lesson. I called the all-in and my opponent showed pocket two's, leaving me with just over 1% to win the hand.

Actually, the opponent in that last case is actually one of the better NL players in the $5 pond at Tiger. He later sat down with me again and worked his $5 up to $20 in about 10 minutes. Revenge is a dish best served cold and revenge was served: in a heads-up pot, he lost $3 when he hit his 6-high flush to my J-high flush. Should he have called a 3xBB raise with only a 63s? My guess is no... If I'd had the nut flush, I could've taken him to the cleaners, but I didn't want to push it. I think he had me playing pretty weak against him due to the previous AK vs. 22 hand.

Although I managed to work $23 worth of buy-ins up to $47 over the course of four and a half hours, I caught a number of bad beats. Luckily, the bad beats all occurred when I put short-stacks all-in. Twice, my over-pair was overturned when an underpair hit a two-outter. Thrice (did I just say thrice?!), a dominated hand hit its three outter. And runner-runner was caught three times to beat me out of the pot. And I ran into pocket rockets three times - unfortunately, one of those times was when I was holding KK and had it all-in pre-flop...rebuy!

Anyway, the no-limit ring games are definitely more boring than limit games since you have to be super-patient (at least I do because I'm a scaredy-cat), but I'm hoping that the $5 NL games at Tiger are +EV for me.

I also played some limit at Interpoker on Saturday evening, but went from a high of +$15 to a low of -$12. I finished my session being down $12 because the table suddenly went short-handed and there were no other tables to be had.

The biggest mistake I made of the evening occurred when I slow-played rockets from the button and just limped into the pot. For each of the past four hands where I'd raised PF, everyone had folded - as much as I liked earning a combined total of $1.50 with my pocket queens and pocket kings, I wanted to have my Aces pay off - my grandmother would call me "greedy-guts" in this instance. When the flop came down 6 J Q rainbow, both players checked to me and I bet (damn you limit play!) - two calls. Turn is a king, SB checks, BB bets. Although I'm a little concerned that the BB bet into me, I'm thinking that he may have hit top pair so I raise it up. SB folds and the BB three-bets it. At this point, I should've just called then called the river, but I foolishly four-bet it and my opponent calls. When the river is a blank and my opponent bets out again, I know I strongly suspect that I'm up against AT or T9. I still call the bet - I'm not going to fold for one bet when the pot is at $12. My opponent showed an AT and Ed Miller now owes me $1.

Except for that one hand, my limit game was pretty sound. I got rivered on 5 or 6 hands, but them's the breaks. I could have easily been up $30 by the time I shut down the night had things gone my way.

Lately, I've tried to bump up my limit-game aggression. I'm now a big fan of raising a bet to find out how good an opponent's hand really is. Although I ignored the warning signs in my awful AA hand, I think the aggression will pay off. I remember reading in Super System II that flop betting in limit games is all about deception. The bets are small, so people will bet out or liberally call bets just to see the turn card. The truth is that if you don't have a made hand or strong draw on the flop, you are most likely dead in the water and should fold unless the pot is large enough to justify peeling off another card.

So, there are two things that I'm doing to improve my limit game: play the flop aggressively to better define my opponents' hands and punish the calling stations and the fish out there for staying in when they should be folding. So far, the river suckouts have turned the tide in favour of the weaker players, but it'll turn around. Does that make me sound like a degenerate gambler? I'm hoping it sounds more like a solid player trying to improve his game...

Ok, that's it for now. I'm going to post some keyword stuff later today if I get the chance. My blog's been turning up on a number of searches lately - although not in the numbers that most sites do - so I'll examine what's been bringing to my doorstep.

Keep reading "Forsaken"

Cool sites, nifty links...

As I was sitting here pissing away my time on the Internet, I thought I'd jot down some some cool links and stuff that I've found. I'll add to this over the course of the day as time permits (and assuming I find more stuff).

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I typically use the Miller starting hand requirements for limit play, as do many +EV small stakes players I assume.

Anyway, last night while playing, I was looking for a nice easy guide to look at to determine how I wanted to play some hands. If you've read Miller's SSH, you've probably noticed that the starting hand charts are not the best for reading on the fly.

Well, the people over at HitTheFlop.com seem to have come up with some easy-to-follow, sound advice. They advocate a slightly tighter style than Miller (probably more in line with Lee Jones), but it is sound nonetheless. As a bonus, their starting hand charts are extremely easy to follow.

There are some changes that I would make myself, but they clearly state that these charts are only a foundation for starting hand selection. As you become a better player, you can add certain hands to your repertoire. I may take their charts and try to integrate Miller's suggestions - we'll see how that works out.

One last thing: they provide one important piece of advice - I believe this because I've heard many better players advocate this same course of action. Here's what they say:

If you DO have a marginal holding, your betting should be guided by the question: "Is there anything I can beat which he would call my bet with?" If he will only call with hands that beat you, then betting is a no-win proposition. Often times in these situations a check will induce a bluff bet from an aggressive poker player which will cause you to pick up another big bet.

Sounds obvious but is extremely hard to follow as a newer player. I think the difficulty comes in knowing that you only have a marginal holding and then having the cojones to call a bet when you believe that you may be just throwing your money away.

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I've always been a sucker for the under-dog. In the poker world, I consider an under-dog to be anyone trying to build a larger-than-life bankroll with nothing but chip, a dream, and some timely sign-up and reload bonuses (thank you BonusWhores!).

Anyway, one such underdog can be found at Building a Hold'em Poker Bankroll. Unlike me, this guy deposited real money in order to kick-start his career. And unlike me, he's building his bankroll far more quickly.

Still, my slow-but-steady approach seems to be working as well - I just fear that reading about my big $5 wins here and there can only help to deter readers from lingering around my stale blog. So, if you are bored, go check out this guy's blog.

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I've heard that Titan Poker has some pretty loose play...

What I'd like to know is: does a site's apparent or implied loose play compensate for the lack of edge that I get from using PokerTracker? Single table - I can handle without PokerTracker. But muli-tabling, who knows?

Also, if anyone out there has had the opportunity to play at Titan Poker, how hard is it to clear the bonuses? I'm guessing it's "Eurobet" hard when playing 0.50/1 but I don't want to jump to any conclusions. Maybe I'll give the chart at BonusWhores another look...

I just realized this post sounds a lot like those questions you see posted all over the Internet:

Where r the easeist games? I want to make lots fo money but dont wan to risk lossing anything?!!

At least I know how to spell and that's gotta be +EV...

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By the way, if anyone out there happens to stop by on a site and I happen to be playing at the time, feel free to pop in and say hello. If you do, which I somehow doubt, make sure you refer to me by name. I have a habit of ignoring the chat of everyone when playing unless I'm directly referred to. I guess I'm just not that nice a guy... However, I make up for not being nice by paying everyone at the table a a portion of my stack! Plus, it's lonely at the bottom. It would be nice to be cheered or heckled, whatever.

Currently, I'm sticking mainly with Intertops $5 SNGs, PokerStars $5 SNGs, and Interpoker $0.50/$1 FL 10-max games. You'll notice my screen names are all posted at the side. Until this becomes an issue, I'll keep doing it. And it probably won't become an issue as long as I keep getting only 10 or 15 hits a day, 80% of which are from Blogger people hitting the Next Blog button.

It feels good to be appreciated...

Keep reading "Cool sites, nifty links..."

+$2.87!

It's funny...I look at other blogs and see guys writing how much they were up after a previous night's efforts. Normally, you'll see some really big numbers and some really small numbers. Up $500! Down $280! Up 22K! Well, I was up $2.87 last night! That's right - I am that good...

In all fairness, I only played an hour of limit poker last night at Interpoker. I really haven't played much FL since last fall so I thought I'd give it another go. I'd had success a couple nights ago and was hoping to continue the trend.

Much to my surprise, there were actually three 0.50/1 tables going. Two were full, one had 7 players. Since I'd been playing a lot of SNGs, I was hoping that reading skills might be a bit better and I could handle playing at a 7- or 8-handed table. Not exactly shorthanded, but I've traditionally done quite poorly at tables with less than a full 10 people seated.

The first hand I play, I'm posting from the BB. Everyone folds to me and I'm up 25 cents! Sweet! And for those who haven't played at Interpoker, tables are usually this tight. The way it seems to work is that people like to wait for "premium" hands (any face card or two s00ted cards, for example) before throwing any money into the pot. So it's not uncommon to get very little action when you want it.

Luckily for me, I had a few fish at the table, one LAG, and one 2+2er. As is usual, the fish beat the living crap out of me and I was forced to take my money from the 2+2er and the LAG. Some hands I remember:

• I lose $3 when I play my Aces aggressively pre-flop and get 3 callers. When the flop comes out with no scare cards, I bet, get a caller and fish raises. Normally, I'm worried when fishy players raise, but this guy had raised and bet every single flop - he tended to play it passively on the turn and river. I made it three bets and only fishy calls. When the turn comes blank again, I bet and the fish goes all in for his last 0.43. He turns over a gutshot straight draw that he then proceeds to hit on the river.
• I pick up J8o in the big blind and only the 2+2er limps into the pot from middle position. I check and the flop comes jack high. Knowing that 2+2er is gonna bet, I check raise him and he calls. Turn is a blank - I bet, he calls. River is a blank - I bet, he calls. He shows me AA! The reason I call this guy a 2+2er is because he had a VP$IP of about 15% and an aggression factor of 5. Normally, he'd bet out the ass trying to push people off the pot. I don't think I ever saw him lay down a hand if it was raised pre-flop. The big mistake this guy made (and it boggles my mind) is that he'd slowplay his big hands and fastplay his crap hands. Don't you want to get more money in when you've got the best of it? Call me crazy but I fold shitty hands and bet my good ones...weird.
• In another hand, I laid down the winner on the river when faced by a bet by a tight neutral player in the SB. I had second pair and had check raised the flop bet by the button and had gotten two callers - tight neutral SB and fishy button. I checked the turn and it was checked around (I hate being out of position). On the river, a blank falls and the SB bets out. At this point, I can raise or fold. I'm not going to call and let an overcall sneak in. Well, after looking at the SB's stats, I decide to fold. Fish calls and win the pot with second pair and a worse kicker than mine (I had JT, he had J8). The pot was only 4.5 BB when the SB bet out and I didn't like my chances. I'd assumed that the SB had top pair, weak kicker and I was wrong.
• Another fishy player sucked out a second pair on the river when he ended up all in on flop - I had top pair with my KQ and he had a pair of nines with his J9. Well, a jack hits on the river and I lose. Why are all these players coming into the game with stacks of only $5? I guess they want the opportunity to suck out for free...bastards!

Anyway, all in all, it was a good night. I punished the 2+2er guy by using his own aggression against him - I check raised him at least once in each of the 4 hands I played against him (he kept trying to steal my blinds from middle position). I'm guessing he had some PT numbers on me and saw that I don't usually defend my blinds. Well, I do when I know the guy's on a steal! Against the LAG, I bet and check-raised my good hands and called down with second pair or better.

So after the suckouts and numerous missed flops with AK and AQ, I ended up in the black. Cool, I'm happy with that. I also put myself 5% closer to clearing my October reload bonus (bonuses stack at Interpoker and seem to last quite a long time before being cancelled). I've actually got about $200 in uncleared bonus stacked up right now - maybe I'll clear those in the next month or two. Saturdays are good for FL games at Interpoker, so maybe I'll give it a good go tomorrow.

Keep reading "+$2.87!"

Good old Matt Maroon!

Well, I finished going through Matt's blog, The Poker Chronicles, and I liked it. He made some really good points that I think will stick with me and help push me to keep at this whole "poker" thing and try to make a real go of it.

First off, Matt is a strong believer in proper bankroll management. If you've been reading my blog at all (and I'm sure you haven't based on the odds of you actually being a returning visitor to my site), you'll see that I take bankroll management to the point of overshadowing my poker play. I don't know why I like the looking at the money I've got and running stats based on my play by time of day, month, site, etc.

It's just comforting to know that I'm not the only person out here in Internet-land that isn't comfortable sitting down at a $20 SNG or at a $3/$6 table with a bankroll just topping $1K. The truth of the matter is that when bad swings come my way (and I know they will), my bankroll should be able to absorb the brunt of it. Whether or not my fragile ego will survive in this case is another matter completely.

Another guy wrote Matt asking about the best way to build a bankroll. Matt's response was to basically start at the 0.50/1 tables and just work it up from there. He cautions that it can be frustratingly slow to make money at these limits for people who don't have the time to put in thousands of hands a week and that it can become easy to lose interest. This is what I've been going through lately. I don't make a ton of money working my current job, but I make a hell of a lot more than most poker players. That's the reason I started playing more SNGs - move the focus from the money and onto the fun aspects of poker. If I can enjoy myself while building up my paltry bankroll, then that's what I'll do. But that's not to say that I don't mind grinding it out math-style at the limit tables, especially if I can win.

Another thing that I found comforting was the rather large plateau that Matt hit midway through last year. I don't take pleasure in others' misfortunes - I'm just happy to know that if it can happen to someone like Matt, then I shouldn't be worried that it can happen to me. Of course, given that Matt plays so many more hands than I do, I could likely fall into a downswing or a plateau that could last upwards of ten years. Oh well, I'll keep grinding I guess.

Anyway, if you haven't checked out The Poker Chronicles, what the hell are you waiting for?

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I may or may not play poker tonight - I'm undecided. On the one hand, it might be nice to just sit back and relax. On the other hand, I'm a gambling addict. I guess I'll have to wait and see how I feel, how my wife feels and how long it takes me to get home in the snowstorm raging outside.

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In a desperate attempt to lighten the boredom of my current work task, I've been reading through various entries here and there throughout poker blog-dom. Call me crazy, but is everyone in a slump right now? Most entries I'm reading now involve talking about how many bad beats there've been lately, how things are running bad, how games are being re-evaluated. etc.

Is the competition getting better to the point that the mighty bloggers are having problems winning? Or, more likely, is it that the competition is getting worse? Have the tables been flooded by newer schools of fish holding wallets fattened by various Christmas-card-cheques from old relatives?

Whatever it is, it better stop soon! I need inspiration, not company in my own misery! So, come on guys and gals, start crushing the tables and get back on your A games.

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I've been getting a sinking feeling while reading other blogs lately. Not the sinking feeling that everyone's luck has changed. The feeling I'm getting is that I'm nowhere near as successful early in my career as others.

Am I playing too tight? Am I not taking enough chances? Is it that I don't have much experience playing poker? When I read about people referring to $1/$2 games as easy, it boggles my mind. For me, $1/$2 was like a giant flabby-armed spanking machine. Every pot raised pre-flop, constantly raised and re-raised on every street. How do you get over the fear of losing money? For me, I don't like calling 2 bets cold unless I have the immortal nuts. And if the board is three suited and three other players have called and raised, how am I supposed to know that my top pair is good? Will I hit it big when I finally do hit the big hand and have the nuts? Am I destined to piss away my stack and only break even when my aces finally hold up?

I just get the funny feeling that poker is like a joke that I don't really get. Sure, I'll laugh along with the others while trying to hide the awkwardness of being odd man out.

I think the following quote from a comment on SirFWALGMan's blog captures my bewilderment:

Funny you should mention how 5-3 is so strong for you. My odd strong hand has been K-9 *shrug* Don't know why, it just seems to work out more times than not.

Why am I scared? I would never play a 53 or a K9 unless I really had to. And there is seriously no way that I would superstitiously over-value these hands. What I'm trying to say is that if people are going to raise pre-flop with a 53o, I don't think that there's any way that I'll survive at the tables. For all my talk about gambling, I hate it. I like math. I like cards. I like money. But I hate gambling for any significant amount of money. Maybe that'll change as my bankroll grows.

I'm sure I'll be comfortable gambling it up at $1/$2 once I've got a bankroll of $2K. Until then, I don't know what else to do.

Keep reading "Good old Matt Maroon!"

First slump of the new year

Although I'm feeling a little under the weather (and have been for a week while fighting off this stupid cold/disease), I decided to play some poker last night. As my wife would say, "What a surprise!". I probably should have stuck with playing Katamari Damacy instead (for those of you who like playing weird f*cked up Japanese games, I highly recommend it).

First off, I decide to check out TigerGaming's $5 NL tables. These are full ring games with blinds of 5 cents and 10 cents - high rollers indeed!

In the first hour of playing, I doubled my buy-in on the strength of two hands - KK and A8s. With the cowboys, I ended up all-in on the flop when I bet big, another guy jammed and I called. He held KQ for a pair of queens (top pair) but his hand was no match for mine. A few hands later, I pick up A8s and hit the nut straight on the turn.

However, things got ugly a little while later when, after sitting at a new table, I picked up T9s on the button. With the number of callers in the pot, I was in for 10 cents. Flop comes 9c 8c 9s. Everyone checks to me, so I bet out $0.50 into the $0.65 pot. Only one caller. At this point, I'm putting him on an eight or a draw. Turn is a blank and I bet $1 when checked to and again I'm called. River is the ace of clubs. Damn...I wimp out and check. I had a feeling I was beat...until my opponent pushes all-in. I quickly re-assess the situation: if the guy had hit his flush, he would have probably put out a smaller bet. He could have nothing and was just trying to scare me off. So I called the bet, going against my instincts and I was punished - I'm shown an 89o for the flopped full-house.

What did I do wrong? If I think a guy is on a flush draw, why would I call all-in when the draw comes in? I guess it's just hard to lay down trips - it's something I'll have to work on I guess.

So, for my efforts, I was down a total of 35 cents for all my NL play.

I then launched up Interpoker for some limit play. Well, there was only one full ring game of 0.50/1.00 running. I played about 35 hands there and another 20 or so hands at a 0.25/0.50 table. I stopped playing after that - I need the extra incentive of earning my re-deposit bonuses in order to play limit. I'm not good enough to make money on my play alone. And at Interpoker, you really need to multi-table 0.50/1.00 and above in order to clear your bonuses at a reasonable rate. Still, I was up about $1.70 after 15 minutes of play.

Then, it was on to PokerStars for an SNG. My avatar is finally up and running - I went with a cool looking Batman logo. I think Batman's cool and the logo is easily recognizable. I like it!

Anyway, after taking an early chip lead, my bad luck (or others' good luck) really kicked in. In five straight all-ins to knock out the smaller stacks, I lost in a dominating position. My AK lost twice to an A6 and an A3. My AQ lost twice to an AT and an AJ. And finally, my Hilton Sisters lost to a suited AJ when the guy hit his nut flush on the turn. All five of these hands were all-in pre-flop.

In addition to that type of bad luck, the two other big stacks were unable to knock out the two smaller stacks as well. In the end, I pissed away all my chips when going up against the guy who'd survived 4 all-ins against me. I had 97o in the BB and got to see the flop for free. Flop comes 7c 8c Tc. I have an open-ended straight flush draw! I check trying to induce a bluff, but none is forthcoming. When the turn is a 6 of hearts, I put out a big bet hoping to induce the all-in. We're fairly even stacked at this point, so if I took this guy out I'd be the huge chip leader. Well, my opponent goes all-in and I call. He turns over J9 (no clubs) and I'm down to T240 when no flush comes on the river.

Should I have folded to the all-in bet? Probably. I could have been drawing very slim to a flopped flush. Then again, this guy was terrible! He constantly overplayed hands and kept "correcting" everyone's play at the table. He was also one of those "zzzzzzzzzzzzzz" players - I hate those guys! Any hand where I was up against him, I'd purposely delay in order to rile him up. Well, I guess he got the last laugh.

So far, 2006 has not been my year for poker. But we're only 5 days in, so no worries. If I play tonight, I may check out some limit play at one of the other sites I frequent. Or I may give the $5 NL another try at TigerGaming. I can't feel too bad about losing one buy-in to a trips vs. full house situation. It happens, I guess.

If any good players are reading this, please let me know how you'd handle any of the situations I listed above. I'm curious to know how good players handle these tough situations.

Keep reading "First slump of the new year"

Mediocre indeed!

I wish I had something more interesting to write, but alas, this won't be an epic post by any stretch of the imagination.


I played a few SNGs last night. Out in 7th at Eurobet when, after taking an early chip lead, missed three straight flops where I'd made a sizable pre-flop raise. I don't know about you, but when the flop comes A Q x and I'm faced with an all-in bet holding only JJ, I'm folding that shit...

Intertops treated me far worse by simply dealing me nothing except one AKs. I picked up the AKs UTG in level 2. However, when I raised it to 3xBB, everyone folded. Other than that, I got nothing and was soon out in sixth.

The funniest occurrence of the evening happened when I accidentally signed up for a $2.50 + $0.50 limit SNG at Pacific Poker. I made two fatal mistakes here:

1. I was playing a limit SNG.
2. I was playing against extremely fishy players.

The whole fixed-limit structure really helped the fish limp into every hand. Any hand that I raised, they would call or cold-call as appropriate. Since I picked up no quality hands, I was unable to punish the loose play of my opponents and, quite embarrassingly, dropped out in last place - 5 out 5. Awful! I can only blame myself for that embarrassment.

Will I play tonight? Maybe. MrVercetti's decided to give the $5 NL games at TigerGaming a try (we like the cheap games) - I may give it a go to see if the play is really awful. If it is, I could conceivably double up numerous times and clear my $5000 bankroll goal tonight! At the very least, I hope to make at least $1.95 so I can pull myself out of the red.

Keep reading "Mediocre indeed!"

The new year will be pimp-tastic!

Ok, now that all that formatting and rendering foolishness is out of the way, I'm going to go through my reading list (time permitting, of course) and see what's up with everyone. Before I do, however, let me just quickly pimp a new book that I got as a Christmas gift from MrVercetti.

This is a great book for any hold'em players out there with a little experience under their belt. Gordon doesn't really teach you how to play specific hands or what to do when you've raised and a jackal comes over the top at you. Instead, Gordon outlines his thought process in various situations that you'll encounter time and time again at the tables.

I'm enjoying the book and my bankroll will certainly reflect the value of Gordon's teachings - I guess time will show whether or not the book is truly +EV. In the meantime, though, the book is only $19 (and that's Canadian) so I think you should really pick it up. And by pick it up, I mean click on my link above. Buy copies for everyone you know!

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The Law School Dropout is still rich, but seems to have lost his love of the game. I fear that is the one downside of focusing primarily on the money gained while playing. I also find that the grind of limit poker can soon get to be too much for many people. I know it's a real grind at 0.50/1.00 - play for 8 hours and if you're up $8, you've had a great session. Now, if only I could 40 tables at once...

My recommendation? Start playing more tournaments! Gamble it up a little! Or bite the bullet and join the PPT! Billy Gazes says that it only cost him $250K to play in all the events this past year.

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Al is back! That's right, Al Can't Hang seems to have found his mojo again. This seems to call for some sort of Austin Powers quote, but my memory's not that good and it wouldn't be funny or witty.

Al, I knew you could do it! Blogging may be gay and poker may end up being a losing battle, but it's still better than most things I can think of.

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Pauly over at the Tao of Poker is still going strong. Check out his recap of 2005 if you happened to fall behind on your reading.

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The Quiet Lion is still playing in numerous tournaments and doing quite well. I'm still waiting to see Richard show up on one of my recorded WSOP or WPT final tables - no luck yet though (I haven't been able to catch any of the UPC events). If you'd like to read about a nice guy living the life of a professional tournament poker player, then check out this blog.

Although, now that I'm supposed to lose a bunch of weight, I'll have to be careful about reading his blog on an empty stomach. Richard, much like myself, does tend to indulge in some finer dining...who am I kidding? I live across the street from a McDonald's and Ronald's never been richer!

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Although I have yet to really get into SirFWALGMan's blog, it's nice to see someone else bitching about losing a hand when you're the clear favourite. And I consider the clear favourite to be any hand where I am 51% to win or better.

Is it just me, or does anyone else out there want to rip the throat out of those pricks who'll put 80% of their chips on the line just to call you're all-in with only a flush draw? And why is it that my draws never come in? And why is it that their draws always hit on the turn and not on the river? Give me a little hope, oh Poker Gods...

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Chris over at Sooted Connectors is busy playing in the medium stakes SNGs. Anyone with the balls to play a $200 SNG with a bankroll of only $1300 is far braver than I. Mind you, if you can afford to invest more cash into your bankroll, then I say go for it.

When Chris gets up to the high stakes SNGs, I'll be interested in seeing how well he does. I know that there are professional players out there, Tony G for instance, who play the $1000 + $65 SNGs at Party. In all fairness to Tony G, though, he plays four of these SNGs at a time and has been known to earn $40K in one evening.

This is to say that I'm really jealous of anyone out there able to make real money playing poker. Just save a seat for me - I should be there in five or ten years...

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The Poker Night Posse have been playing over the holidays. They play a lot more live poker than I've ever played - I just don't know enough people. If you feel like reading about some hardcore (at least more hardcore than me) players actually doing well in live and online tournaments, then check out their blog.

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Chad over at Pokerama-rama has been busy calling in sick, losing it at Doyle's Room and beating the $4/$8 at Canterbury with cowboys. Intrigued? Read all about it here.

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Unfortunately, I can't check Matt Maroon's site, The Poker Chronicles, from work because of our firewall. So, like any Internet geek out there, I was using bloglines to get my updates. However, I was wondering why Matt wasn't updating his site.

Question answered: I was subscribed to an old (or incorrect) feed. I now get to read of all Matt's dings and insults as he wades through the sea of fish while earning a pretty penny.

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I forgot to mention a funny thing that happened in one of the SNGs that I played over at Intertops. Very first hand, a guy raises to 5xBB from early position. Unless I've got rockets or cowboys, I'm laying my hand down here no matter what. Most raises from early position should be respected, but there is always the chance that the guy is a "donk". But I'm sure as shit not busting out in tenth when my big slick loses to an 98s.

Anyway, the raise is in. A guy in late position decides to push his entire stack in. Everyone folds to the UTG player who calls, showing AA. The LP shows...the hammer!

Examples like this go to show you that a little knowledge does not equal wisdom. I don't think that there is a single blogger out there who would do anything that risky on the first hand of an SNG - assuming booze was not involved and the buy-in was sufficiently high. Needless to say, the hammer was about an 8 to 1 dog in the hand and Mr. Hammer was out before I'd taken my first sip of coffee.

And to top it all off, the guy didn't even type "The Hammer!" or anything in the chat. He just left wondering how he'd lost with a hand that good...

Keep reading "The new year will be pimp-tastic!"

This site only works in Firefox?!

For whatever reason, my site only seems to be rendering properly in Firefox. WTF?!

I'm going to play around and see if I can fix this thing. If this blog goes dead, I'm going to be mighty pissed...

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Fixed...geez, there's gotta be an easier way. I really need to update the look of the site. A little too busy or something?

Keep reading "This site only works in Firefox?!"

Fruit cake, turkey and SNGs

Over the holidays, I got to spend some time with my wife just relaxing and doing nothing. I also got some great presents, lots of great food (a little too good - see my previous post), and I managed to regain my love of this game we call poker.

According to PokerDominator, I played 36 SNGs since starting my Christmas vacation on December 23rd. Considering that I only played poker on 7 days over the course of my holidays, the days that I did play were pretty busy. For those without family out there, 5 SNGs in one day may seem paltry. However, that's quite a bit for me and that's all I'll say on that matter.

So, how is the 100 SNG Challenge coming along? Let's take a look:

• SNGs Played: 52


• In-The-Money: 48%


• ROI: 18.7%


• 1st Place: 5


• 2nd Place: 11


• 3rd Place: 9


• Bubble Boy: 11


• Other: 16

What do these stats say? Well, most importantly, they say that I'm doing pretty darn good so far. It's a little disconcerting that I've placed 2nd twice as many times as 1st - this reflects the fact that I'm playing to "place" as opposed to playing to win. However, this may change if I start getting some better cards and/or flops.

My wife watched in horror as I lost hand after hand against opponents that I had dominated. I had a huge run of unlucky streaks where my AK would lose to AJ or AQ, my KK would lose to 55 or AT. In a bad run of 5 SNGs, I was out on the bubble 3 times with AT when I'd push only to have someone call me with a monster hand (KK,JJ,JJ) and out another two times holding an overpair. I think AT was the hand that cost me the most over the holidays, followed by closely by Big Slick and Big Chick - they just didn't hold up for me.

I can't complain too much though. Although I did get unlucky a number of times, I was blessed with many bad calls by my opponents. And although bad calls can turn into horrific bad beats, they usually boost my ROI!

So, I've got 48 more SNGs to play to complete my challenge. Once I'm finished, I may give the $10 SNGs a try. I'll start out by playing 10 or so and, if I don't get destroyed, I may start another 100 SNG challenge at the $10 buy-in tables.

More posts to come, but I wanted to squeeze this one out before my day got really busy. I have a feeling that 2006 will not be as forgiving as 2005, but only time will tell.

Keep reading "Fruit cake, turkey and SNGs"

Happy New Year!

How's that for an original title for this post? Well, cut me some slack, I'm a little rusty and I'm finally back at work after a week and a half vacation. I'm going to make a couple posts today - this first one will concentrate on my New Year's resolutions and the next post will outline my poker play over the holidays (as well as contain all the usual fluff that seems to find its way into my postings).

So, I've got a bunch of resolutions this year, but only two of them will be tracked on this site. One is poker related, one is not, and both are fairly lofty in terms of feasibility. I read on the Law School Dropout's blog that any goals worth reaching should be just beyond your grasp - this forces you to really work at it and strive to become more than you thought possible.

In terms of poker, I resolve to grow my bankroll to $5000 by 11:59 PM on December 31st, 2006. How I'll do this, I don't know. I'll most likely need to get past the $1/$2 limit poker barrier that's been holding me back. I have a feeling that once I've managed to post some winning sessions at $1/$2, I should be able to move up to $3/$6 by year's end.

In addition to limit poker, I may attempt to play some large multi-table tournaments in the hopes of placing high enough to earn a decent payday. If I can place a few times next year in some $10 multi-table tourneys, I could be well on my way to the $5K that I so desperately seek.

Another resolution that I'll need to follow through on is in regards to my weight: I need to drop 55 lbs. in 2006. I just want to be healthy, and if I plan on starting a family and playing poker, I'll need my ticker to be in good hands if I'm gonna make a go of anything this year.

Whether or not you've noticed, I now track my bankroll on the sidenav to the right. I'll start tracking my resolutions as well. That way, you'll know at a glance whether I'm a champ or a chump.

Well, that's it for this post. Make $3800. Drop 55 lbs. Simple...

Keep reading "Happy New Year!"